This paper’s purpose is to contribute to the literature on sustainability, consumer behaviour, competitive advantages, and the Analytic Hierarchy Process. The emphasis is on the interrelationship between these studies and institutions of higher education, hereinafter referred to as IHEs. The question to be researched is “How and why can a strategy of sustainability be used for graduate business schools in the United States to gain competitive advantages?” There has been limited quantitative or qualitative research investigating this topic. Following a discussion of the impetus of the research, including the theoretical context and significance of it, the rigor and relevance of the project will become self-evident. The paper begins with the background of the research topic and issues facing IHEs. The contextual theme of sustainability is reviewed including the current state of sustainability in business, and in IHEs. Various concepts of consumer behaviour theory are reviewed with an emphasis on IHEs and the research topic. This paper reviews what is meant by competitive advantages for graduate business schools. The literature review concludes with a discussion on various models for multi-criteria decision-making problems including the Analytical Hierarchy Process, herein after referred to as AHP. A contribution to research is the modification of a section of AHP and demonstrating for the first time its unique use as a diagnostic tool in revealing the magnitude of differences among the audience’s priorities in multiple-criteria decision-making analysis. This modification creates a high definition tool that can be used in various aspects of research. Gaps in the current literature are highlighted as well as areas in need of further research. The scope for this research has been narrowed to graduate business schools in the United States that are accredited by The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, hereinafter referred to as AACSB. There is a lack of articles in academic journals that address the topic of quantifying the impact of a strategy of sustainability for IHEs. Through the identification of the gaps in the literature and identifying the effects on IHEs that employ a strategy of sustainability, this paper contributes to the literature in these areas. In doing so, this paper shows how answering this question is relevant for graduate business schools. In practice IHEs may elect to use sustainability to further define their niche and to target their marketing efforts more effectively to a specific population. Sustainability may be able to help create or solidify the brand of an IHE. The findings and recommendations, as well as future research that should be considered, conclude this dissertation. As a result of the research, there is evidence that concludes that sustainability is a relevant criterion for today’s graduate business school student and that IHEs can benefit if they are perceived as authentic in their sustainability efforts. The research also resulted in a new analytical tool that can produce a higher definition of the understanding of consumer perceptions and priorities.

There has been growing literature on management control in the context of front-line service work, including sales work. Given the nature of front-line work, service recipients – customers and clients – play an important role in management control and in the social relations in the workplace. Moreover, the triangle relationship has become a research focus for decades. However, most of the research has been done in western countries. In addition, little attention has been paid to sales work mixed with service elements. Furthermore, the complexity of the triangle relationship between three parties has not been sufficiently evaluated. This thesis investigates management control in a Chinese life insurance company and the effects of management on individual sales agents and the triangle relationship between management, sales agents and clients. In order to address the research target, this study employs a qualitative approach and chooses a single-case study research design. The qualitative data has been collected from a documentary analysis, observations and semi-structured interviews. The empirical findings suggest that: a. The management controls in the studied case can be categorised into two main types: formally coercive control that consists of output control, bureaucratic control, direct control and attendant control; and informally normative control that consists of concertive control in the sales teams and normative control in morning meetings. b. The controls for contradictory logic that interact with one another to have an impact on individual sales agents and the triangle relationship. c. Sales agents who have a greater family responsibility and the capability of meeting sales targets set by the company are more motivated by financial incentives, identified with organisational and occupational value and self-disciplined. d. Sales agents who have a poor performance and lack the capability to improve their performance are more likely to resist management control. e. The relationship between management and the sales agents is not always conflictual. f. Co-worker assistance and informal coping are found in the relationships among sales agents, although their sales work is highly individualised and competitive. g. The relationship between sales agents and clients is instrumental in its nature, but when there is an ongoing relationship and a high level of trust between sales agents and clients, this relationship appears to be less instrumental. h. Improving the quality of service and enhancing the myth of customer sovereignty may sacrifice efficiency in the short term, but it can potentially increase sales efficiency in the long run.

The rise of brands has been widely considered as a contemporary Western phenomenon, emerging in the 1980s and exploding in the largely service-oriented economies of the 1990s, and intensified by the emergence of a brand industry, promoting branding practice as new and powerful. This thesis presents the producer's perspective through the biography of Japanese no-brand brand, Mujirushi Ryohin, conceived in the 1970s. Translated as No Brand Quality Goods, this brand was created essentially to be an 'anti-establishment brand' in response to what was viewed as an invasion of European luxury brands. While recent sociological work focuses on information intensive relationality of branding, this study draws attention to material and social relations of the production of the brand. Incorporating interviews with key persons in the creation and production of Mujirushi Ryohin, which were granted through rare access into its management company, Ryohin Keikaku, this thesis presents an empirical and historical account of this brand by drawing attention to minute details of how the company endeavoured to create and to produce the brand as a range of products. In so doing, it employs a historical relational approach, highlighting that how constituent practices of branding develop is contingent upon factors specific to the particular context in which they operate, and following it from its birth through to the late 2000s, as it travelled from Japan to Britain. In this way, the thesis also contributes to debates about the embeddedness of economic/market action, questioning the self-regulating nature of the market, as well as the concept of the rational and, therefore, calculating agents.

The purpose of this study was to identify factors that influence students to attend Cyprus College. The college could utilise the outcome of the study for the development of its strategic student recruitment plan as well as for market positioning and promotion. The competition in recruiting more students and retaining them has become fiercer than ever before. Facing a growing competitive environment, higher education institutions are mobilising all the resources for recruiting and updating their programs, services and campuses to become more attractive to students and their parents. Anticipating students' expectations could be one of the most effective tools that colleges hold in order to face the new highly competitive environment. The survey instrument utilised to collect data on college choice factors was a self-administered questionnaire, developed by the researcher based on a review of the literature on college choice, the researcher's personal experience as an administrator in the field of college education and information received from a focus group. Descriptive and multivariate statistics, including frequencies, cross-tabulations, factor analysis and reliability tests have been used to present and analyse the data. With a clear understanding of the factors influencing students to enrol at Cyprus College, it will be in a better position to target and promote those qualities/characteristics important for the effectiveness of recruitment and enrolment activities. In addition, the College can use the outcome of the study to strengthen areas that need improvement by adjusting the college characteristics (operational and strategic), so that they would be more consistent with those desired by students. Several recommendations have been put forward in this study, and they are expected to serve as a guideline not only for Cyprus College management but also to other higher education leaders who wish to improve the effectiveness of their marketing and recruiting efforts.

As mass customisation (MC) grows in both popularity and accessibility, there is an increasing understanding of its practical implementation. Much of the current research in the field of MC is quantitative; driven by the business, engineering and management perspectives crucial in operationalising the process. The customer codesigner is acknowledged as an integral part of the MC product and purchasing process, yet the experience of the customer as a co‐designer remains relatively unexplored in the literature. This thesis stems from the design research disciplines and reports on an investigation of individual customer co‐design experiences. This research study posits that the experience of co‐design consists not only of the specific activities at the ‘product configurator’ (as commonly described in the literature), but instead that a co‐design experience comprises four distinct stages that encompass the entire purchasing experience from the beginning of co‐design activity through to the receipt of the customised product and beyond; these stages being ‘explore’, ‘engage’, ‘anticipate’ and ‘own’. A multi‐method research design is used comprising: literature review; immersive research techniques; customer journey mapping and design probes. From case studies of each customer codesign experience, relatable information and insights can be drawn that inform designing for co‐design. This doctoral study presents series of new relatable models and frameworks that surpass anything currently available in the literature. They conceptualise and visualise the customer co‐design experience, and inform design for co‐design. These reveal not only what is happening now, but also support proposals for what could or should be happening now. The product envelope model brings together the findings from both the MC and customer experience literature to place the solution space within its broader context, highlighting the importance of service and brand within an MC product offering. The customer corridor model characterises the stages and phases of a co‐design experience within the product envelope and choreographs the interplay between co‐designer and producer. The experience matrix provides a visual representation of the placement and duration of key touch points that occur across the customer corridor, and offers a systematic approach to considering the role of enduring touch points throughout a co‐design experience. In concluding this phase of the work, new opportunities have emerged that provide alternative approaches for understanding and designing for customer co‐design experiences.

The thesis aims to bridge topics traditionally belonging to different areas of the subject: competition and entrepreneurship coming from microeconomics and industrial organization; and growth, from macroeconomics. It centres around the notion that market structure and conduct affect performance and hence growth. Firms optimize by anticipating changes in consumers' demand and in suppliers' behaviour, which are a function of the market structure and its changes. Market-entry can be explained by the level of competition in a market which can be altered by the implementation of specific policies (for instance, the way a competition authority handles mergers). Failing to have an appropriate antitrust regime will ultimately harm entrepreneurship since it will affect one's ability to understand and to handle the risks associated with launching a new venture. The thesis also explores how different definitions of entrepreneurship explain varying innovation mechanisms (neck-and-neck and leapfrogging) and how this dovetails with the structure and conduct within a market. For transition economies, we find that competition policy has played a growth-enhancing role and that this effect may be larger than the impact associated with privatization, and we also find evidence of policies' complementarities. These findings are also echoed by our individual-level analysis. We analyse the determinants of high growth expectations entrepreneurial entry (HGE) using individual data drawn on working age population, based on the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor surveys for the 1998-2004 period. We find that HGE is more likely to occur when the entrepreneur perceives a gap in the market with no other producers supplying the same product. This reinforces the theory that the amount of competition faced by an entrepreneur affects the rate of HGE and also provides a microeconomic foundation for the country-level growth effects described for transition countries.

Impulse buying is a phenomenon that has attracted attention from marketers and consumer researchers for decades. Whilst impulse buying has been studied extensively, there is a gap in our understanding of consumer impulse buying choice in different consumption situations. Impulse buying research lacks a theoretical and systematic approach in examining and integrating situational variables. This thesis aims to examine consumer impulse buying choice in various situations simultaneously through the identification of both external and individual determinants of impulse buying behaviour in each situation. This thesis adopts the view of radical behaviourism and the behaviour perspective model (BPM). Radical behaviourism views impulse buying as a behavioural pattern shaped by its contingencies, and the BPM provides a theoretical model which generates the influences of both external and individual-related factors and investigates the interactions between the determinants of impulse buying from the pre-purchase to the post-purchase stage. The BPM matrix also provides a systematic framework to examine consumer impulse buying choice in various consumption situations. A questionnaire was developed based on the BPM with a pre-study interview used as a complementary method. The survey collected data from 414 consumers in the UK and Taiwan. The results show that impulse buying behaviour is shaped by its contingencies and the ways in which the BPM components influence impulse buying behaviour vary significantly in different situations. The routine shopping situation and its utilitarian reinforcements trigger the highest rate of impulse buying choice. Secondly, the results demonstrate the interactions between the consumption situations and their corresponding individual-related factors, which illustrate the different types of impulse buying behavioural patterns. Thirdly, post-purchase regret was not necessarily found as the punishment that reduces impulse buying behaviour but an indicator of individuals’ impulse buying patterns. Finally, individuals’ cultural backgrounds were also found to predict different types of impulse buying patterns effectively. As the first study to investigate consumer impulse buying choice in different situations, this study contributes to the literature by providing empirical evidence of situational influences and cultural differences. In addition, this study complements existing impulse buying knowledge by adopting a behavioural perspective. This research also offers managerial implications for international marketers and consumer policy makers on the ways in which impulse buying behaviour may be encouraged or controlled.

This thesis examines the use of behavioural and cognitive-behavioural models, to determine whether they can explain consumer shopping centre choice. Two studies were conducted, to examine how well different theoretical models previously used to explain consumer purchase behaviour can explain patronage behaviour with respect to shopping centres. The stimulus-organism-response (SOR) and behavioural perspective model (BPM) were the models examined in this thesis, as the SOR has previously been used to examine store patronage, and the BPM is widely used in consumer research to explain different types of consumer behaviour. Original scale measures were developed across the two studies where necessary to measure variables in new ways. The thesis explores the use of verbal reporting to measure learning history and consequences at an individual level. The BPM presents a good frame with which to explain consumer patronage responses, while the SOR model applied did not. The BPM showed that social and physical stimuli in the environment act as the main drivers of patronage response, with consequences and learning history also offering some contribution to explain this behaviour. The model was extended to consider the effect of behaviour setting stimuli on emotional response, determining that part of the impact of physical and social stimuli on patronage response is mediated by pleasure. The thesis confirmed that the BPM is a suitable model to extend into application for patronage decisions at the shopping centre level, but that it is more applicable at this level when emotional response is also considered.

Media asset management (MAM) is a key factor in efficient and effective marketing processes, which is why the market for media asset management is expected to grow tremendously in the future. In the meantime, best-in-class companies have centralised their access to all digital media assets to assure that all process members are able to benefit from media assets they are authorised to use. Modem information technology (IT) systems support the lifecycle of media assets. Marketing often entails performing a number of repetitive activities, thus forcing companies in this field to further increase their focus on business process management (BPM). The large amount of digital media files produced for all forms of communication can be traced back inter alia to the enormous relevance of social media. Media asset management systems (MAMSs) help organise and optimise media logistics, thereby yielding a very quick return on investment (ROI). As MAM is a relatively new topic, performance measurement systems in this area are underrepresented. Maturity models are used to measure, assess and optimise processes. They have high practical relevance. Over 100 different maturity models currently exist. They are used to compare best practices against real processes, to identify strengths and weaknesses as well as potential for optimisation and to provide advice on further steps. The research presented here develops and verifies a Media Asset Management Maturity Model (MAM3) and is therefore situated directly at the interface between MAM and maturity models. Hence, the MAM3 closes the gap described above. The model was developed and verified in a mixed methods approach. Initially it was built on basis of a broad literature review. Afterwards it was discussed with several experts with experience in the adjacent areas. Experts involved came from a software vendor, from large, globally operating companies that have used MAMSs for a long time, from consulting companies (inter alia top 5) or had an academic background. This procedure assured that the most relevant perceptions were considered. Changes based on this stage were later components of an in-depth quality assurance interview triangulation). Ultimately, the final model was tested in a quantitative survey with customers of a leading software vendor of MAMSs in Germany. One outcome was that all maturity categories established are positively related to performance in the area of media asset management. Furthermore the Media Asset Management Maturity Model has a high impact on management practice. Relevant variables that contribute to higher performance in the media asset management environment are decrypted and patterns are identified. The model offers the ability to guide managers through this complex topic and is a helpful instrument in the area of MAM. With a broader adoption in the future and the establishment of industry sector- and size-specific benchmarks, the benefits of using this tool will increase even more.

The inception of the Internet has brought with it Electronic Commerce (E-Commerce) practices which have greatly transformed the ways firms conduct businesses globally. Internet-based E-Commerce, particularly business-to-business (B2B) holds the key for small businesses to compete on a level playing field with their big business counterparts. Unfortunately, however, there is considerable evidence to show that small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries, particularly those in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), have not been reaping the benefits of this new commerce opportunity as their counterparts in North America and Europe. This chasm has given rise to another form of Digital Divide. This research has identified the major factors responsible for this state of affairs as the low level of participation by the SMEs in the SSA region in this global E-Commerce trade. SSA region has been identified as a region with the lowest level of economic, technological and Internet development in the world. There are 49 Countries in this region inhabited by over 633 million people representing about 10% of the world's population. They are characterised by a low income, low-levels of human resource development, as well as severe structural, social, political and economic weaknesses. All these have combined to make the region the poorest region in the world. It has been established that SMEs form the bedrock of every economy. There is also considerable evidence to suggest that the introduction of new technologies into organisations of all kinds and sizes has a major impact on the structure and functioning of the organizations. Furthermore, it has been established that B2B E-Commerce is contributing more to the global economy than all other forms of E-Commerce transactions. Equipping SMEs in developing countries, particularly those in SSA, by with emerging B2B technologies could help improve their growth potential which will invariably place them in a better position to contribute to the region's economic advancement. Existing models have failed in attracting large numbers of SMEs in the region, partly due to the prohibitive costs of these technologies which make them unaffordable by the poor SMEs. This research has identified that the issues of Trust as well as the problems associated with Fraud and Security also play a part in making E-Commerce unattractive to a lot of SMEs in SSA. Current theoretical frameworks have been extended by developing a new taxonomy showing the various components of E-Business where the distinctions between E-Commerce, E-Government, Tele-Medicine and E-Learning are clearly identified. This thesis seeks to find solutions to the identified problems by finding ways of attracting more SMEs in SSA to participate in the global E-Commerce endeavour. This is with a view to enabling them to leverage and maximise their E-Commerce potential, which in turn would help them exploit today's global E-Commerce opportunities. This will ultimately help them in contributing to the economic growth of the region. As a way of making E-Commerce attractive, affordable and profitable, an architectural model has been designed which, it is believed, would make the deployment and implementation of B2B E-Commerce more achievable for the poor SMEs in SSA. This model, known as Tradern Model, combines the trado-cultural and modern methods of conducting business. This combination would help SMEs deploying the technology to conduct their businesses using both methods without compromising their growth. Over and above everything else there is the benefit of a level-playing field which the SMEs in developing economies, like Africa, and particularly Sub-Saharan Africa, can capitalise on to leapfrog, improve and sustain their economic development and global e-business participation as a step towards bridging the digital divide.