RSS 1.0Chester Business School
The business department is based at both the Queen's Park and Warrington campuses and is well placed for students who wish to study in the North West. The department of Business was established at the University in 1999 and offers a range of Business and Management degrees at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. University of Chester Business School also has a solid portfolio of Research and Knowledge Transfer Projects with a range of organisations. These projects are intended to give mutual benefits for students and the region’s business community by providing access to the University’s resources, knowledge and expertise. The majority of the School’s research is applied in a practical context and it is committed to constructing and improving sustainable relationships with external organisations and businesses.
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Machiavelli, marketing and management: RevisitedThis second fascinating and cutting-edge text provides insight into the meaning and interpretation of Machiavelli and his works for management, marketing and political thought and highlights their particular relevance to the manager and policymaker today. By bringing together contributions from authors, both academic and practitioner, this book addresses a number of common themes relating to the influences and arguments of perhaps the first political scientist and advocate of sound management and marketing principles. The volume covers a wide range of topics including modern management and leadership, public affairs, technology, marketing, populist and fascist governments, and strategic corporate philanthropy. Machiavelli, Marketing and Management: Revisited will be of great interest to all practitioners, students and scholars of management, marketing, political science and public affairs.
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CrowdfundingCrowdfunding is the approach fundraisers take to raise funding for a project, venture, or personal needs, from a crowd of people, or known as investors, backers, or supporters based on characteristics of different crowdfunding models, essentially through the Internet. Crowdfunding is considered as an alternative finance option for different purposes of businesses (e.g., new venture creation, business growth, and exit), individuals (e.g., life events and challenging circumstances), local communities (e.g., saving a local pub), and public sector. This entry will have a brief look at the history and trend of the different crowdfunding models, as well as their relationship with entrepreneurs and the public sector.
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The Palgrave encyclopedia of interest groups, lobbying and public affairsThe growing need for a concise and comprehensive overview of the world of interest groups, lobbying, and public affairs called for a compendium of existing research, key theories, concepts, and case studies. This project is the first transnational encyclopedia to offer such an interdisciplinary and wide overview of these topics, including perspectives on public relations, crisis management, communication studies, as well as political science, political marketing, and policy studies. It is an interdisciplinary work, which involved an extraordinary pool of contributors made up of leading scholars and practitioners from all around the globe; it is a live and evolving project focused on drawing together grounded international knowledge for our diverse and developing world. The 200+ entries of the Palgrave Encyclopedia of Interest Groups, Lobbying and Public Affairs (to be found as a live reference work online here, and in two print volumes in 2022) address these research avenues, tackling a growing demand for a comprehensive international reference work regarding key global sectors and policymaking structures, looking beyond the traditional markets of Europe and North America to incorporate practice and research from Asia, Africa, Oceania, and Latin America. This encyclopedia acts as a synthesis of existing research, and aims to aid academics, students, and practitioners navigate their relevant fields around the globe.
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The Sage handbook of political marketingThe Sage Handbook of Political Marketing is a comprehensive resource that introduces the theory and practice of political marketing in a global, yet simultaneously localized, world. The practice of political marketing has evolved significantly during the 20th and 21st centuries, adapting to the rise of mass media, marketing communication, advertising, and the web. Traditionally dominated by US, European, and Australasian scholars, the field has up-to-now emphasized the Americanisation and professionalisation of campaigning styles. Since the start of the new millennium, however, political marketing has transformed into a data-driven, specialized profession. With increasing digitalisation and the advent of AI, political marketing involves personally targeted, evidence-based messaging with real-time engagement and sentiment analysis. This approach is not limited to democratic regimes but is also widely adopted by authoritarian states worldwide. The handbook addresses the global perspectives on political marketing, covering a myriad of contexts, cultures, and regimes. It encompasses insights into political marketing in regions seldom discussed in the literature, including Zimbabwe, Japan, India, Hong Kong, and Ukraine. These chapters enrich the debate on political marketing’s impact on democracies and its use in non-democratic societies. Organized into four parts, the handbook covers strategy, propaganda, digital evolution, ideology, and contemporary practices in political marketing. It explores topics such as the marketing of ideology, the impact of the internet and social media, the use of AI in political marketing, and the role of fake news and disinformation in campaigns. The handbook addresses the use of political marketing techniques in crisis management, political branding, the measurement of political marketing effects, and political marketing use outside of electoral campaigns. The Sage Handbook of Political Marketing is an essential resource for scholars, practitioners, students, and politicos in general, seeking to understand the complexities of political marketing. It provides a comprehensive and nuanced exploration of the field, equipping readers to engage with the theoretical and practical aspects of political marketing in a rapidly changing world. Part 1: Strategy in Political Marketing: Orthodox and Occidental Perspectives Part 2: Political Marketing, Propaganda, and Digital Evolution: Global South and Eastern European Perspectives Part 3: Ideology in Political Marketing: Advocacy, Movements, Lobbying, and Public Diplomacy Part 4: Contemporary Political Marketing: Cybercampaigning, Fake News and Social Media
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Soft power, art of the media and international political marketing: A cross-cultural perspectiveIn 1990, the eminent scholar, former diplomat and policymaker Joseph S. Nye, a figure of profound influence, coined the concept of soft power. He defined it as “getting others to want the outcomes you want”. Nye argued that this is achieved through the persuasion and attraction of one’s ideas or the ability to set the political agenda to shape the preferences of others. This concept, at the heart and cutting edge of political marketing, international policy making, and modern public affairs, is a testament to Nye's intellectual prowess. This chapter asserts that the monitoring and knowledge of the soft power of nation-states is a critical component of modern political marketing.
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Exploring the transformational learning potential of the ‘outside field’ coach mentor: An ethnographic study with four duoethnographiesDespite the awareness that sports coaches actively seek advice and support from those they consider to be mentors (including, those mentors who may be positioned as non-sport, or outside the field of sport), there remains a paucity of empirical research, about ‘what happens’ or ‘what goes on’ in the mentoring space, particularly from a learning impact perspective. Indeed, ‘what is spoken about’, ‘what is said and by whom’ and ‘what may be learnt’ by mentoring participants in the mentoring space remains largely unknown. There may be reasons for this, including the fact that coach mentoring episodes are figuratively hidden, often private affairs. By gaining privileged mentor access to three high-performance Futsal coaches’ this study aims to explore the role of an outside field coach mentor, during a period of time when each Futsal coach is preparing national Futsal teams for international competition. Data about what happens in the coach mentoring space is collected through a form of collaborative reflexive dialogue (between the coach mentor and each Futsal coach), leading to the formation of four separate duoethnographies. In order to analyse the dialogue contained in each duoethnography (DE), the work of Jack Mezirow’s Transformation Learning (TL) theory is adopted as a lens to further explore the transformative learning potential of the coach mentor. Participation in this study was entirely voluntary, based on the principle of the informed consent from three high-performance Futsal coaches. Through the writing and analysis of each DE, findings reveal the potential an outside field coach mentor may have in supporting the transformational learning of each Futsal coach and indeed his own. In this way, this current study contributes both to a wider understanding of the role of a coach mentor in the context of high-performance sports coaching and equally the value of DE as an approach for critical reflexive dialogue in sports coach mentoring.
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Earth observation data and AI integration: Unveiling the spatial impact of wildfire pollution in Los AngelesEarth observation data contains vast amounts of valuable information that enhance comprehension of environmental changes and support informed decision-making regarding our planet. The Copernicus Browser is a powerful online platform designed to facilitate the visualisation and analysis of these data. Meanwhile, the advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming numerous fields. This case study presents a scenario demonstrating how AI can assist in the spatial analysis of imagery data related to wildfires in Los Angeles, obtained from the Copernicus Browser.
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Exploring the role of embodiment in the production and experience of wild atmospheres in natureEmbodied and emotional experiences are heightened in encounters with nature, especially in blue spaces. Thus, drawing on the works of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, we analyse the role of the body in the production and experience of wild atmospheres through the practice of wild swimming in natural blue spaces. Using an interpretive approach involving interviews and ethnographic observations with forty-six wild swimmers, our analysis foregrounds embodiment and illuminates the central role of the body in the relational production and experience of atmospheres in nature. In so doing, we extend current understandings of embodiment by advancing a granular account of the emergence of ‘wild swimming atmospheres’ produced and experienced haptically and somatically through intimate and personal connections and entanglements between human bodies and natural surroundings. The paper concludes with suggestions for exploring embodied haptic and somatic experiences in other consumption contexts within natural settings.
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Why ignore expiry dates on cosmetics? A qualitative study of perceived risk and its implications for cosmetics producers and regulatorsConsumers often use cosmetics long after their expiry date, despite the health risk. This paper aims to understand why and to suggest policy changes that can promote safer practices in cosmetics use. This is the first study to investigate risk perception in relation to expired cosmetics. Thirty-three semi-structured interviews with both cosmetics users and employees of cosmetics companies were conducted in the UK and China. Perceived risk theory was found to be a useful analytical lens. Eight risk factors emerged from the data, including two not previously identified. Combinations of risk were also found to be valuable in explaining consumer attitudes to cosmetic expiry dates, which suggests that perceived risk factors interact with each other to create an emergent perception of risk, requiring an integrated understanding. While physical, performance and self-brand connection risk can promote adherence to an expiry date, other risk factors such as financial and social risk can override such concerns, leading to the expiry date being ignored. Implications for suppliers’ and regulators’ policies and risk-communication strategies are identified that may help reduce the risks being taken by cosmetics users.
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Learning to inhabit the liquid liminal world of work: An auto-ethnographic visual study of work-life boundary transitionsThis article explores a conceptually modified notion of liminality in order to make better sense of contemporary ‘flexible’ working life. Previous conceptualizations of liminality rely on the assumed existence of socially sustained boundaries and the possibility of boundary spanning. Under conditions of liquid modernity, however, boundaries or thresholds have been destabilized to the point of collapse. Nonetheless, individuals still feel the need to establish and maintain intersubjective boundaries to preserve their own sense of well-being. To understand the new predicament faced by employees, we reconceptualise liminality for liquid times – through the notion of liquid liminality – and, simultaneously, problematize dominant conceptions of work-life balance. The implications that liquid liminality carries for the notion of flexible knowledge work are discussed. Our auto-ethnographic visual study of an academic returning from maternity leave uses a socio-material lens to exemplify the struggles of the contemporary flexible knowledge worker. It also demonstrates how the constant transition between workplace and home life is freighted with anxiety and exhaustion. We also outline opportunities for establishing new learning habits that follow from our theoretical framing and empirical analysis.
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A story-in-the-making: An intertextual exploration of a multivoiced narrativeThe following study will explore the stories which are not told – that is, it will scrutinize the process of intertextual emergence of an ultimately open story: one which has neither discernible authorship nor agenda and which remains in-the-making rather than strives to achieve closure. The paper will discuss the process in which multifaceted and multidirectional organizational stories are created, in which plots and characters exchange and ‘ending’ is defied. This lack of closure is perceived here as a breeding ground for networked meanings, which, if allowed to remain interdependent and plural, eschew the danger of a new organizational story becoming universal carrier of inflexibly established contents. Since the unifying semantic organizational frameworks (e.g. ‘success story’) may be construed as impostors attempting to ascribe both authorship and agency to a nonagentical and non-authored ‘untold story’, this study proposes one way in which multidirectedness and plurality of the story may be preserved.
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Monologue and organization studiesIn this essay, we propose that recent work in management and organization studies is typically inclined to understand organization and organizing as dialogic in form. Dialogicity is characterized by dynamic interlocution on the part of active human sense-makers and, in our critical reading, evokes a romanticized social landscape that fails to reflect the more prosaic features of organizational life. To address what we see as certain limitations of the dialogic view, we introduce a complementary point of reference: that of monologic organization. This perspective provokes reflection on those situations in which meanings are predetermined at the outset and communication consists of the strictly controlled, routine reproduction of formal scripts. We draw on the works of Mikhail Bakhtin and Michel Serres to reclaim monologic as a pertinent view of organization and its processes. Finally, we provide micro-, meso- and macro-level examples to illustrate and discuss the heuristic potential of a monologic view.
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Introducing AIRSim: An innovative AI-driven feedback generation tool for supporting student learningThis paper introduces AIRSim (AI Responses Simulator), an innovative AI tool designed to support students in practicing their questionnaire analysis skills within the café and restaurant discipline. Utilizing artificial intelligence (AI), AIRSim generates hypothetical feedback data to facilitate student learning. Through a series of 16 experiments, we evaluated AIRSim’s capability in simulating participant responses to user-uploaded questionnaires. Our findings demonstrated a notable degree of diversity in the generated results, as indicated by the Entropy Index, across various perspectives and participant-question combinations. To the best of our knowledge, there exists a lack of relevant studies exploring this specific application of AI in the context of student learning within the café and restaurant discipline. By introducing the AIRSim tool, educators can efficiently enhance their students’ analytical abilities and responsiveness to customer needs. This practical contribution addresses the pressing need for effective training methods in the hospitality sector while also capitalizing on the transformative potential of Generative AI technologies, such as ChatGPT. Overall, this study provides valuable insights into AI-driven student learning and identifies areas for future research.
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A new age of leadership in academia: Need for change and innovation during COVID-19The aim of this study is to explore the role of academic leadership and adaptive leadership on organizational readiness for change. During times of pandemic, adaptive leadership has emerged as a vital leadership discipline along with academic leadership due to uncertainty and sensitivity of situation. In addition, demand of innovative behavior has also increased over the years particularly during Covid-19. The study has been carried out in Higher Education Institutions of Pakistan where the data was collected from deans, directors and head of departments in two phases. Quantitative research strategy was opted for the study. Survey research design was followed to respond objectives of the study. The purpose behind the selection of senior academicians is to draw empirical results from the perspective of all the heads of their relevant departments. The data was collected from seven public sector universities across Pakistan. About 251 responses were found valid. Covariance based SEM was used to analyze the data. Analysis reveals a positive and direct relationship between academic and adaptive leadership and organizational readiness for change and similar results were found by placing innovative behavior as a mediator leading to the acceptance of all developed hypotheses. This study is unique in nature and has implications for leaders in academia in terms of unleashing the potential toward uncertain situation in higher education institutions. Study’s major limitation include less representation of the Pakistan as whole country as it included Punjab province only for data collection.
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Designing a Community Ecosystem to Address Food Insecurity and Well-Being Among Elderly South Asian Adults: A Service Evaluation Framework ApproachLevels of poverty and deprivation and the demand for food aid has increased significantly as a result of the joint effects of ongoing austerity measures (O’Loughlin et al., 2024), welfare reforms (DWP, 2015), pension credit cuts (Slocombe, 2023), the COVID-19 pandemic (Oncini, 2021; Summers et al., 2021) and the ongoing cost-of-living crisis (Moraes et al., 2024; Bull et al.,2023). Moreover, a significant correlation exists between these economic/social drivers and health inequalities (Garthwaite et al., 2015), with many predicting a public health emergency (Wolfson and Leung, 2020). Despite recording significantly higher levels of poverty, poor health and housing in comparison to white ethnic groups, older individuals from ethnic minorities are under-represented as recipients of food aid. Thus, there are many knowledge gaps in our understanding of food services provided to older people within older ethnic minority communities (Power et al., 2017). In response to this empirical gap, this research draws on service ecosystem evaluation frameworks (see Baron et al., 2018) to empirically advance our understanding of community food service provisioning within South Asian communities as well as identify appropriate food support ecosystem approaches which can be used to address food insecurity in ethnic minority communities. Through the use of in-depth interviews carried out by researchers belonging to Bangladeshi and Pakistani communities, our findings reveal that systems adressing food insecurity and well-being issues within older ethnic minorities are inadequate, especially considering specific cultural, social and economic shortfalls in the provision of appropriate services. Consequently, we conclude by providing recommendations to food service providers within ethnic minority communities.
