Aila M Khan

A Model of Sponsorship Effects on the Sponsor's Employees

Drawing from the corporate sponsorship literature, a model is developed that seeks to explain how externally directed corporate sponsorship can influence the behavior of the sponsors employees. External sponsorship conveys a signal that can impact on employees’ perceptions of their employer. The model seeks to explain the processes and types of possible impacts. Although the model requires confirmation, its conceptualization raises additional avenues to assess the benefits of corporate sponsorship.

#naorobot: exploring Nao discourse on Twitter

The Nao robot from Aldebaran Robotics is a fairly popular humanoid robot. In this study, we aimed to conduct a discourse analysis around the Nao through content analysis of posts on Twitter (N=235 tweets in English). The analysis aimed to understand discourse around the robot, the usage trends of the robot, the existence of social relationships between user and robot and if there were any patterns in tweeting. Our main results show that the Nao is attributed with high anthropomorphism and social rapport and the popular usages of the robot extend to research and education but not to health and domestic applications. In conclusion, we speculate on our results obtained and present a direction for future research.

Smoke spots: promoting smoking with social media

Article 13 of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) requires signatories to ‘undertake a comprehensive ban of all tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship’.1 The FCTC defines advertising and promotion very broadly, as any form of commercial communication, recommendation or action with the aim, effect or likely effect of promoting a tobacco product or tobacco use either directly or indirectly.1 The Implementation Guidelines for the FCTC specify that: …a comprehensive ban…applies to all forms of commercial communication, recommendation or action and all forms of contribution to any event, activity or individual with the aim, effect, or likely effect of promoting a tobacco product or tobacco use either directly or indirectly. 2 (Italics as per original.) It is therefore of concern to see that Imperial Tobacco has launched a social media campaign around the ‘Smoke Spots’ website in the UK (http://www.smoke-spots.co.uk). The sites launch was announced on Imperial Tobaccos Twitter account in July 2013, describing Smoke Spots as a ‘website for smokers’ which enables consumers to ‘find bars, restaurants and clubs with smoking facilities as well as locate outlets selling tobacco’.3 Imperial Tobaccos Head of Consumer Marketing was quoted in a company press release to support the launch as saying: ‘With this great new initiative, we are giving our consumers the chance to interact and form an online community where they can share great smoking experiences with each other.’4 The goal of creating an online community where consumers can ‘share great smoking experiences’ would appear to be inconsistent with the FCTCs ban on directly or indirectly promoting tobacco use. In the same press release, Imperial Tobaccos Head of Digital and Marketing Communications implied the purpose …

‘Retweet for a Chance to…’: an analysis of what triggers consumers to engage in seeded eWOM on Twitter

ABSTRACT Twitter provides an important channel for brands to seed electronic word of mouth (eWOM) by followers retweeting brand messages, but prior research has not established a theoretical framework for how brands can maximise eWOM. This study presents and tests a theoretical model incorporating interactive, textual and visual tweet features to predict eWOM, using tweets by leading brands from three industries. Industry was found to be an important moderator of the effect of tweet features; after controlling for the reach and frequency of tweets, hashtags, retweet requests and photos were consistently associated with a higher retweet rate across industries, but the effect of URL links, non-initial mentions and video varied across industries, in some cases decreasing the retweet rate. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Supervisor support and work-life balance: Impacts on job performance in the Australian financial sector

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relations between supervisor support (SS), work-life balance (WLB), job attitudes and performance of employees in the Australian financial sector. More specifically, the study explore the impact of SS, WLB and job attitudes on employees’ job performance (JP).,Using an online panel, the data comprised 305 employees working in financial organisations to test a model with structural equation modelling. A list of survey items was tested that replicated extensively in work-life research in the past.,The research contributed to the existing literature by identifying a significant mechanism through which SS was linked to WLB that influenced job satisfaction, life satisfaction and organisational commitment and JP given the paucity of such research in the Australian financial sector.,The study would guide employers, employees and managers involved in the financial sector to implement policies which aim to augment JP and promote balance between work, home and life.

An Image Based Non-verbal Behaviour Analysis of HRI

Acceptance and engagement of users towards social robots is the yardstick by which the success and efficacy of Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) is measured. Metrics such as acceptance and engagement are normally measured through subjective (such as interviews) or objective measures (such as non-verbal behaviour). In this study, we report on a methodologically novel process of monitoring non-verbal behaviour of humans in visual images with a social robot. We qualitatively code pictures of humans with the Nao robot as found on Instagram. We specifically coded the emotions of the users as depicted by their facial expressions as well as their social distance maintained towards the robot. Our results show that in general humans persist with an overall positive, enthusiastic and engaging behaviour towards the Nao. Moreover, females were found to be much more expressive in their responses towards the Nao as compared to males - a gender effect. We conclude with the implications of our results and possible avenues of future research on the topic of measuring human engagement with social robots through visual stimuli.

Australian consumer awareness of health benefits associated with vegetable consumption

AIM The present study investigated the perceived health benefits of specific vegetable consumption to guide the use of nutrition and health claims on vegetable marketing collateral. METHODS Free elicitation and consumer ranking data were collected through an online survey of 1000 adults from across Australia and analysed for the perceived importance of vegetables in the daily diet, number of serves consumed per day, knowledge about health-related benefits of specific vegetables and perceived health benefits of vegetable consumption. RESULTS The importance of vegetables in the diet and daily vegetable consumption was higher in people from an English-speaking background, females, people aged 45 years and over and people living in non-metropolitan areas. Digestion was selected as the major health benefit from consumption of specific vegetables. However, understanding of the health benefits of specific vegetable consumption was relatively low among consumers. Half of the respondents were not sure of the health benefits associated with specific vegetables, except for carrots and spinach. Some respondents volunteered nutrient content or other information. CONCLUSIONS There was no clear indication that consumers understand the specific health benefits conferred by consumption of vegetables. Nutrient and health benefit labelling therefore has the capacity to enhance knowledge of vegetable consumers. It is recommended that health benefit labelling be tailored to promote greater consumption of vegetables in those demographic groups where vegetable consumption was lower. The present study assists the Australian vegetable industry in helping consumers make more informed consumption choices.

Sponsorship-Linked Attitudes of Employees of Sponsoring Firms: SMEs Versus Large Organisations

Corporate sponsorship is often used to develop positive attitudes towards a brand or a firm, among its customers and/or potential customers. Depending on the size of the organisation, corporate sponsorship may involve high-profile entities (such as the Olympics), or smaller local groups or individuals, but the prominence of large entities means that sponsorships by large organisations attract most media and research attention. A less commonly studied effect of sponsorship is the effect on the attitudes of the sponsoring organisations’ own employees. In this area, as with consumer-focused sponsorship, large organisations are likely to have substantial advantages. Large firms have the resources to leverage their sponsorship both internally and externally. Large organisations also have the expertise to effectively communicate their sponsorship-relationship to internal audiences. Yet smaller organisations may also be successful in engaging employees by sponsoring local entities at far lower cost, and providing opportunities for employee participation in the sponsorship. This research compares sponsorship-linked attitudes of 405 employees at small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and large organisations. Despite large organisations’ bigger budgets, sponsorship-linked attitudes were not significantly lower among SME employees. For one measure, sponsorship-linked organisational identification, SME employees rated significantly higher than employees of large organisations. The findings suggest that sponsorship can result in positive employee attitudes, even in SMEs—and may in fact be even more cost-effective for SMEs. These results may be due to increased communication within SMEs, or because SME employees may have stronger affiliations with sponsored entities. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Differences In Effects of Sport and Non-Sport Sponsorship on Sponsor’s Employees

Corporate sponsorship has long been regarded as a growing communication tool (Olson 2010), with worldwide spending reportedly exceeding

“Smoking is bad, it's not cool…yet I'm still doing it”: Cues for tobacco consumption in a ‘dark’ market

48 billion in 2011 alone (IEG 2012). Corporate sponsorship is differentiated from other forms of organisational altruism, as it is defined as “an investment in cash or kind in an event, team or person, in order to secure sponsor’s access to the commercial potential associated with that selection“ (Meenaghan 1983; p.9). Thus, the definition implies the expectation of a benefit or a return to the sponsor.