Lindsay Stringfellow

Mind the gap: the relevance of marketing education to marketing practice

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to review the debate on the purpose, focus and necessity of UK undergraduate marketing education. Design/methodology/approach – Assumptions in this debate are challenged by the collection and analysis of interview data from practitioners, alongside additional data from UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in respect of their current marketing programmes. Findings – The results indicate that there is a large degree of commonality between the offerings at UK HEIs, and that some significant gaps between the teaching offered by the academy, and the knowledge and abilities required by practitioners do exist. Research limitations/implications – The data sets have limitations of depth and scope. Further research is needed in which the details of marketing education and the requirements of marketing practice are examined more closely, and at levels other than undergraduate, and in countries other than the UK. Practical implications – This paper should be of interest to marketing programme managers, and also to marketing module co‐ordinators as a basis on which to consider the future development of their educational practices. Originality/value – The collation of data about marketing modules offered by UK HEIs will be of interest to most marketing teachers. Further value will be obtained if this paper is used as part of the re‐engineering of a marketing programme.

Apostasy versus legitimacy:relational dynamics and routes to resource acquisition in entrepreneurial ventures

This article explores the relational dynamics of legitimation within a professional service venture context, using a Bourdieusian framework to elucidate the struggles for capital and legitimacy that characterise the venture development process. Two profiles of individual business owners who renounce or adhere to established norms of the professional field are identified: apostate and traditional. Small accounting ventures may benefit from improved access to resources if they concentrate on fitting in with prevailing small firm professional logics, eschewing logics from outside the focal field associated with apostates. A model of legitimacy is developed that accounts for the efficacy of institutional and strategic modes of legitimacy relative to the maturity of the field and objectification of its social formations. We propose that entrepreneurial habitus mediates field-level conditions and capital formations that, when combined, create symbolic capital and resource acquisition possibilities.

'Space of possibles'? Legitimacy, Industry Maturity and Organizational Foresight

The dispositions and invisible cognitive structures central to organizational foresight are more likely to emerge in young or transforming industries, which are less constrained by the need to achieve institutional legitimacy. Five key points: •Organizational foresight, conceived of as the ability to transgress boundaries and evaluate different futures, is seen as vital to an organization’s capabilities. •The roots of the awareness and perception from which organizational foresight emerge are often unconscious, being embedded in invisible cognitive structures which organize practices. •The emergence of organizational foresight is intimately linked to the institutional context of the firm, the modes of legitimacy which dominate that environment, and how balanced these conditions are with the subjective disposition of the organization. •The stability and convergence that characterize mature industries orientate organizations towards institutional legitimacy and the conservation of existing social relations and practices. •In emerging or transforming industries, there is a greater possibility for a disjuncture to occur between industry conditions and the situated practice of the organization, which may generate organizational foresight and opportunities to achieve strategic legitimacy.

Beyond segments in movement: a “small” agenda for research in the professions

Purpose - – The small accounting practice, despite being the most numerous part of the profession by number of firms, remains largely under-researched. Part of the reason the small practice category remains elusive is that researchers find it difficult to precisely define the object to study, and yet, this may be precisely the reason for studying it. Envisaging how this category is “represented” in institutionalized settings, constitutes a rich agenda for future research as it allows the small practitioner world to be connected to the issue of intra-professional segmentation. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach - – This paper proposes reinvigorating research around Bucher and Strauss’ (1961) conceptualization of professions as “segments in movement”. At the same time as advocating a better investigation of the small practitioner segment itself, it suggests to take the latter as an example to further explore the vision of professions as segments “more or less delicately held together”. To this end, there is a potential for cross-fertilization between Bucher and Strauss’ research programme and a range of other theoretical frameworks. Findings - – The discussion points towards how small practice, as a segment whose history and characteristics reflect the different struggles that have led to the creation of the professional accounting body and marked its subsequent evolution, is far from insignificant. Segmenting the profession in categories related to “size” offers an opportunity to deal with an under-investigated aspect of professions’ sociology and history, which encapsulates its inherent diversity and hierarchy. Whilst the professional body may replicate the hierarchy that structures broader society, the meaning of small itself, within a hierarchy of organizations, is also a relative concept. It is politically charged, and must be delicately managed in order to maintain harmony within the polarized professional space. Originality/value - – The small practitioner has been much overlooked in the accounting literature, and the literature on the professions has overemphasized aspects of its cohesiveness. The authors contribute a revitalized agenda for researchers to explore the dynamics of heterogeneity and unity in the professional body, by focusing a lens on the small practice and extending the “segments in movements” premise beyond the functional division of professions.

Book Review: Networks, Trust and Social Capital

This collection of papers adopts a sociological perspective to discuss an area of growing entrepreneurship research interest: the social-capital, trust, networks nexus. Most chapters were originally presented at the Economic Sociology Research Network of the European Sociological Association, in Helsinki, 2001 and the book presents a refreshingly European perspective on social capital. Containing theoretical and empirical investigations, the book provides a useful introduction to concepts including social capital, trust and reciprocity while developing and extending established sociological perspectives on these.

Narrative, metaphor and the subjective understanding of historic identity transition

Abstract This article examines the relevance of employing an oral history method and narrative interview techniques for business historians. We explore the use of oral history interviews as a means of capturing the expression of subjective experience in narrative and metaphor. We do so by analysing interviews concerning the transition of East German identities following reunification with West Germany. Self-expression emerges as critical to the vital identity work required for social integration following transformation, metaphor providing a means of articulating deep-rooted patterns of thought. We demonstrate that employing an oral history methodology can benefit business historians by affording access to the human dimension of a research project, unlocking the subjective understanding of experience by low-power actors among the non-hegemonic classes. Hence, employing an oral history methodology provides a valuable means of countering narrative imperialism, exemplified here by the dominant West German success story grounded in Western-style individual freedom.

Puppets of necessity? Celebritisation in structured reality television

Abstract This conceptual paper uses field theory and a production of culture perspective to explore the celebritisation process in structured reality television. This relatively new genre, typified by The Only Way Is Essex, blends fiction with fact and constitutes a new, playful and interactive iteration of the broader category of reality television. We identify three culturally productive models that create new celebrity discourses and establish a theoretical underpinning for the role of structured reality in the celebritisation process; tournaments of value, spectacle and transformative performances. Whilst not exclusive to structured reality television, these models are particularly effective at explaining how celebrities are interactively understood in an increasingly mediatised marketplace. We contribute a model which proposes that celebritisation in structured reality is a homologising process through which celebrity meaning is legitimised.