Viral Marketing

A recent edition of the Grocer ( October 3rd 2009 ) makes a good point about the use of Social Networking sites to host Viral Marketing campaigns. As the audience is a young one for sites like BEBO, sweets are very popular for these campaigns. Hence viral marketing for Chewits ( pictured), Wispa, and Dime Bars ( strangely renamed Daim bars )

Leadership in Business and Sport

Do the leadership and team dynamics of a small sports team really have application to teams in the workplace ?

Lots of material on the Business Source Premier database on this subject. My search strategy, using sports teams and management as subject terms seemed to unearth quite a few results. Admittedly several of the results concentrated on American sports, but can probably be adapted with care.

Issues arising often compared team leaders and team captains as : listeners, communicators, educators, analysts and tacticians.

One of the better sources was a full-text version of this :

Katz, N ( 2001) Sports teams as a model for workplace teams : lessons and liabilities Academy of Management Executive 15 (3) p.56-67 accessed via Business Source Premier [online] library.beds.ac.uk on 18th September 2009

Pro's and Cons of Social Networking for Business

The opportunity social media offer for open dialogue with customers can pose risks as well as benefits....

Benefits.

• Customers can tell you what they think of your product or brand

Risks

• You may not like what they tell you

I suppose that this is only a problem if you are not prepared to face negative feedback. This needs to be done quickly and effectively however ( within 24 hours ? ) otherwise the brand could suffer badly . Nothing worse than an out-of -date blog.

Although blogs & social networking sites are easy to access this is no excuse for having poor content contained on them.

We feel before we think...

...this quotation is related to Marketing Communications in one of the Project titles....

Don't forget that bookstock on cultural studies may provide some useful information here. In particular two books by John Berger 'Ways of Seeing' and 'Another way of telling' ( written with Jean Mohr )

'Ways of seeing' is a classic text, about art criticism and how we view images. It contains a great deal of information about our reactions to visual images which could be of use for both this topic and also the question...

Advertising is all about telling stories : they don't have to be true

Advertising Quotations...

There are lots of quotations about advertising, which might help spice up your project. It just occured to me that you could trace lots of these on Credo Reference database.

The one I just used was uncredited. Here's my source..

Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, and the trouble is I don't know which half.Leverhulme, Viscount (1851 - 1925)

( Accessed via Credo Reference [online] via http://library.beds.ac.uk on 26th August 2009 )

Targeted Advertising

"Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted : trouble is, I don't know which half"

Article in FT ( Wed April 15th ) looks at how advertisers are now targeting consumers through social networking sites such as Facebook.

Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL all collect behavioural data and use this information to target users.

The future ? This process is extended to cable / satellite television channels...

Find the article on Newsbank if you are looking at Viral / Behavioural Advertising.

The title is ' A deeper peeper'

Nature of Entrepreneurship

You don't learn to be Alan Sugar at school. Either you are an entrepreneur or you're not.

Discuss.

This question is really looking at what makes an entreprenuer ? Which skills be learnt at Business School. Lecturers will not want you to get sidetracked with the lives of Alan Sugar or Richard Branson, but reading a little about their lives may give you a flavour of how their background has shaped their success.

The book by William Bygrave & Andrew Zacharakis ( 2008 ) Entrepreneurship, John Wiley

has a chapter on the entrepreneurial process, good definitions, and the 10 D's of successful entrepreneurship.

Dream, Decisiveness, Doing, Determination, Dedication, Devotion, Details, Destiny, Dollars ( it's a US book ), and Distribution.

How many of these skills do you think could be learnt ?

Glass Ceiling

If you are searching Business Source Premier, or other Ebsco Databases for material on the Glass Ceiling, and possible solutions to it's existence it is worth trying to get to know the subject terms which the database prefers. For example

to find material on Flexible Working in the UK

flextime SU Subject Terms

great britain GE Geographic Terms

This gives several relevant pieces which seem quite current. I particularly liked

Brocket, J (2008) Flexibility measures to go ahead despite economic gloom

People Management 14(5) p.7

Business Ethics

For those people attempting the question on the ethical behaviour of small and large firms this journal is well worth a browse. It's a UK based publication, and covers issues in an easy to-understand manner. There's a recent issue ( 2009 ) all about CSR and ethics in small and large corporations

Corporate Social Responsibility

As well as several books in the LRC this seems to be a topic on which there are several fairly serious articles available through Newsbank. Choose your sources carefully, but the majority of sources seem to be from papers such as the Guardian. Lots of discussion about whether CSR is meaningful or simply a gimmick. 'Greenwash' as it has been labelled...

Market Reaction to Rights Issue

Could not find too many articles on this topic, although the one below has a fairly extensive bibliography, which may yield some other ideas. You may need to start ( as I did ) with a clear idea of what a "rights issue" means, and think about how this may affect share values.


Announcement Effect of Rights Issue...
This paper examines ordinary share price abnormal returns reaction to announcements of rights issues in the Indian Stock Market. This paper also examines Information hypothesis, Price pressure hy...By: Malhotra, Madhuri; Thenmozhi, M.; Kumar, G. Arun. Journal of Services Research, Apr2007, Vol. 7 Issue 1, p215-231

Whistleblowers - public services or traitors ?

Those of you who are doing this topic are looking at the motivation of whistleblowers, and whose interest they might be acting in. I think it would be reasonable to consider the difference between a whistleblower in the social services and one in a corporation. The books which you can find on the library catalogue should be a useful starting point.

Credo Reference Database mentions, in one of it's may definitions of the word, the Public Disclosure Act (1998). This has been called the 'Whistleblower's Charter'.

We did not look at Acts of Parliament during our sessions, but they are easy to find using this site :

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts

On a similar theme the UK Parliament site could also be potentially useful. You would be able to identify occasions upon which the subject has been discussed in Hansard ( the written record of Parliament )

www.parliament.uk

This site will normally provide quite a lot of information, and will usually look impressive in a bibliography.

Is there a glass ceiling for women ?

For those of you doing this topic don't forget that books in the LRC should provide useful historical background material...

As this topic has quite a sociological slant you might also consider using the Sage Premier database. Credo Reference is very good for definitions of this term ( I like the one from the Gale World of Sociology ).

During the sessions we mainly looked at full-text databases, but I think that some UK material will be found if you look at British Humanities Index and

ASSIA ( Applied Social Sciences Index)

Global Economic Statistics

Several Applied Management topics involve statistics on the current economic situation with regard to a particular country. Some general statistics which might be relevant can be found in the Europa World Yearbook. This is a two volume work availabe in the reference section of the LRC.

Each country has a detailed entry on economic affairs. It's a useful digest of the current situation.

eg " By 2007 it was estimated that Nigeria's external debt had been reduced to just 3% of GDP"

( Europa World Year Book 2008, p.3409 )

Referencing

Although the hand-in date is not until September 2009, it's not to early to start thinking about Referencing. I would encourage you to keep a note of all the sources which you have used. There is nothing more frustrating than trying to find the source an article which you have used later on.

In addition to the guidelines in your module handbook I would draw your attention to the Learning Resources Guidelines :

http://lrweb.beds.ac.uk/help/guide-to-ref

For detailed information, not included in either of these sources, the best guide available is probably 'Cite them Right'. It's easy to read and very comprehensive. There are plenty of copies available in the LRC.

You can always approach us personally for further advice.

Introduction to the blog

Having seen a very keen set of new AMP students in June 2009 I thought it might be an idea to put together a blog bringing together some of the sources we discussed.

I'll try to update the sources as often as possible, and apply labels to each post which will enable you to identify your particular topic.

These are just suggestions about what material you might find, so please don't treat them as exhaustive.

There will also be some hints and tips on general issues such as referencing.