Stella Minahan

An exploration of relational customers' response to service failure

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine how customers with different relational bonds respond to the same service failure. In particular, the framework to service failure and recovery devised by Fournier and Mick is applied.Design/methodology/approach – To uncover rich emotional and cognitive responses to service failure, in‐depth interviews with eight former and current patrons of an Australian opera were used.Findings – Three types of relationship were identified: satisfaction‐as‐love (SaL), satisfaction‐as‐trust (SaT) and satisfaction‐as‐control (SaC). Each responded to the same failure in different ways. SaL customers had emotional bonds with the product category and thus reaffiremed their loyalty following the failure. SaT customers saw the service failure and inadequate recovery as a breach of the brands implied promise and thus excited the relationship. SaC customers took charge of the situation, using their status to improve their situation and then defended the brand.Practical implicat...

Organizational decoration : a new metaphor for organization development

The authors call for the introduction of a new metaphor, organizational decoration, to provide a way of conceiving organizational development (OD) as an aesthetic endeavor. First, this is a response to recent calls for fresh and more interdisciplinary approaches to thinking about the practice of OD. Second, it is a provocation, for their choice of decoration is also a call for greater humility in OD’s ambitions. Rather than seek a more strategic or architectural role for OD, organizational decoration works instead at the surface and in the realm of the aesthetic. And within that realm the authors have deliberately chosen decoration over design (a term far more familiar to OD) because decoration more closely represents the ordinary and often temporary contributions that the authors advocate. Implications of moving OD down-market are discussed.

Seeking attention: an eye tracking study of in-store merchandise displays

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the role that visual measures of attention to product and information and price display signage have on purchase intention. The authors assessed the effect of visual attention to the product, information or price sign on purchase intention, as measured by likelihood to buy. Design/methodology/approach – The authors used eye-tracking technology to collect data from Australian and US garden centre customers, who viewed eight plant displays in which the signs had been altered to show either price or supplemental information (16 images total). The authors compared the role of visual attention to price and information sign, and the role of visual attention to the product when either sign was present on likelihood to buy. Findings – Overall, providing product information on a sign without price elicited higher likelihood to buy than providing a sign with price. The authors found a positive relationship between visual attention to price on the display sign and ...

A creative twist: Management theory, creativity and the Arts

For many theorists and practitioners in the area of organizational theory, HRM, marketing and other domains of organization studies, organizational creativity is something to be distilled and managed as an element of organizational performance. The article argues, however, that this process of appropriation from the creative arts is subject to a number of problematic transitions. The articles starting point is the notion of creativity itself. Within the creative arts, the question of what constitutes creativity and its relationship to artistic practice is subject to considerable debate. This debate centers on the question of whether creativity represents an essentialist and inexplicable (even spiritual) component of artistic practice or whether creativity is a trait of work and cannot be attributed as a unique aspect of art. The mantra of creativity provides nothing more than a means to control individuals and provide them with a false hope that contributing to the success of business will provide a means to self fulfillment.

Unravelling Woomera: lip sewing, morphology and dystopia

Presents a gendered interpretation of reports of protests in 2000‐2002 among asylum seekers held at Australias recently closed Woomera Detention Centre, discussing instances of lip sewing that evoked strong reaction from the Australian Government, people and press. Suggests that an Irigarayan gendered reading of lip sewing assists in understanding these examples of self‐harm, supplementing feminist readings of craft, and calling attention to local enactments of gender in both refugee studies and in organizational development and change.

The aesthetic turn in management

Part I The Aesthetic Turn: Arts and Appreciation in Organization and Management: Aesthetic understanding of organizational life, A. Strati (1992) Finding form: looking at the field of organizational aesthetics, S. Taylor and H. Hansen (2005) Strategy retold: toward a narrative view of strategic discourse, D. Barry and M. Elmes (1997) Organizational kitsch, S. Linstead (2002) The labour of aesthetics and the aesthetics of organization, A. Witz, C. Warhurst and D. Nickson (2003). Part II Following and Framing Management Fashion: Rhetoric and myth in management fashion, A. Kieser A fantasy theme analysis of Peter Senges learning organization, B.G. Jackson (2000) Haute couture and pret-a-porter: the popular press and the diffusion of management practices, C. Mazza and J.L. Alvarez (2000) Management fashion as image-spectacle: the production of best-selling management books, T. Clark and D. Greatbatch (2004). Part III From Fashion to Fiction: Narrative and Storytelling Approaches: The storytelling organization: a study of performance in an office-supply firm, D. Boje (1991) Organizational story and storytelling: a critical review, M.E. Boyce (1996) A four times told tale: combining narrative and scientific knowledge in organization studies, B. Czarniawska (1997) Narratives of organizational identity and identification: a case study of hegemony and resistance, M. Humphreys and A.D. Brown. Part IV The Theatre and Performance of Management: Management as a performing art, I. Mangham (1990) The cultural performance of control, R. Munro (1999) Playing the part: reflections on aspects of mere performance in the customer-client relationship, H. Hopfl (2002) From dramaturgy to theatre as technology: the case of corporate theatre, T. Clark and I Mangham (2004) Spectacular metaphors: from theatre to cinema, T. Wood (2002). Part V Management Impro: Jazz and Beyond: Improvisation as a mindset for organizational analysis, K.E. Weick (1998) Creativity and improvisation in jazz and organizations: implications for organizational learning, F.J. Barrett (1998) Towards a theory of organizational improvisation: looking beyond the jazz metaphor, K. Kamoche, M.P. Cunha and J.V. Cunha (2003) The complexity of improvisation and the improvisation of complexity: social science, art and creativity, A. Montuori (2003). Part VI Crafting Management and Management Studies: Crafting strategy, H. Mintzberg (1987) Crafting organization, J. Wolfram Cox and S. Minahan (2004) Essai: on paragrammatic uses of organizational theory - a provocation, Y. Gabriel (2002) Index.

Display signs and involvement: the visual path to purchase intention

Retailers, merchandisers and suppliers go to great lengths to display merchandise so that it captures the eye of the customer. Attention requires eye movement. Our eyes move (saccade) and pause (fixate) to direct attention. Cognitive processing of visual items requires the eyes to attend to an object. Eye movement can measure attention, and attention increases mental processing of an object (e.g. word, image, object, and product). Both the characteristics of the person (top-down factors) and the stimulus (bottom-up factors) contribute to attention and influence the meaning derived from the stimulus. For the current study, we integrated involvement theory and the elaboration likelihood model with eye-tracking technology to evaluate customer attention to merchandise displays and their likelihood to buy (purchase intention). We recruited 344 subjects in six North American locations to view images of 32 live plant displays. Visual data were collected using a Tobii X1 Light eye-tracking device. To date, few investigations using eye tracking have been conducted on merchandised displays. Our hypothesis was that the more highly involved customers would view the merchandise (live plants) longer than required for identification, information or price signs. Results show differential 3-D patterns of involvement, likelihood to buy, and total visit duration. Involvement moderated the relationship between the time spent looking at the merchandise and their likelihood to buy.

The organizational legitimacy of the Bauhaus

Gaining and maintaining organizational legitimacy can be a major issue for social and political structures such as cultural organizations. Legitimacy, sometimes called credibility, brings with it access to resources needed for survival and development. Organizations without legitimacy tend not to be successful in attracting grants, subsidies, and sponsorships. Research suggests that legitimate organizations may be seen as valuable social structures (Hybels 1995; Suchman 1995) and come to be “taken for granted” as part of the social fabric. In this article, I explore organizational legitimacy using the framework of institutional theory. I first define legitimacy and then discuss the key concepts of organizational legitimacy. Next, I present a case study based on an art/craft/design school. The school, known as the Bauhaus, existed between 1919 and 1933 in three German cities—Weimar, Dessau, and Berlin. Deterministic views of the pre–World War II environment suggest that the Nazi party was responsible for the closure of the Bauhaus. I argue that other factors were apparent. The Nazi regime was becoming a significant force in the late 1920s, but the story of the Bauhaus becomes more complex when viewed under the rubric of arts management and organizational legitimacy. In this article, I discuss how the Bauhaus sought and managed legitimacy and the role that the state and other actors played in granting that legitimacy. In conclusion, I offer a summary of the relevance of legitimacy to contemporary arts organizations.

Conducting field research in retail stores: A meandering path to a successful research project

This case study follows the sometimes meandering path of a team of international academics conducting field research in retail stores. Field studies in retail stores are rare because the potential for disruption to trade is generally not tolerated by retailers nor are the benefits to the retail industry well understood. Research into retail, marketing, product testing, advertising and promotion, therefore, is most commonly undertaken externally via focus groups and panels, exit interviews, analysis of scanner and point of sale data, observation, and laboratories with simulated shopping and surveys. Here, we record the experience of conducting field research to assess consumers’ perception of merchandise displays, using eye tracking technology. Applying concepts from sociology and anthropology, we explain and analyse the pathways, obstacles, facilitators and supporters that we encountered on our way to completing successful field experiments in retail garden centres. Commencing with a review of field studies in retail stores, we walk through the phases of the project, including the reflections of team members. We conclude with a discussion of the findings and the implications for other academics wishing to undertake studies in retail stores.

The Inscrutable Shopper: Consumer Resistance in Retail

The book highlights research undertaken by marketers, social researchers and anthropologists who have an interest in this field. Anti consumption is of relevance to practitioners and academics as it is important to understand consumer trends and values.