Rock Advertising Ltd v MWB Business Exchange Centres Ltd [2018] UKSC 24

Essential Cases: Contract Law provides a bridge between course textbooks and key case judgments. This case document summarizes the facts and decision in Rock Advertising Ltd v MWB Business Exchange Centres Ltd [2018] UKSC 24. The document also includes supporting commentary from author Nicola Jackson.

Welcome Back, We’ve Missed You! Humanized Business Communication in Shop Window Messages during Early 2020-Lockdown

This paper focuses on the way in which small and medium-sized businesses in Flanders adapted communication with their customers during the economic lockdown in March–May 2020. It documents, more specifically, how shops tried to maintain, re-establish, or even re-invent communication with their customers during this two-month period. Based on pictures of shop windows in a Flemish city, we analyze the (semi-)commercial messages that appeared in this setting during this period. This analysis adopts an interdisciplinary perspective, in which a cognitive linguistic approach is integrated with analyses and practical advices by marketing agencies. Despite their orientation towards distinct, theoretical and practical goals, both approaches share an analytical interest in mapping participants and their mutual relationship as part of a communicative interaction. In the period of economic lockdown, marketers urged shop owners to ‘humanize’ their business strategy by downplaying content-related issues in favor of maximal social outreach towards customers. Considering this advice, it was hypothesized that under these circumstances participants in commercial transactions would be construed much more prominently, presenting themselves and each other as unprecedented empathetic business personas. Much of our data comply with this expectation, thus providing empirical evidence of a subjectified communicative ground, in which both buyer and seller personas figure with augmented prominence as parts of the object of conceptualization. Messages include, among other things, expressions of empathy, solidarity, combativity, but also creativity and humor thus incorporating a new type of humanized business communication. With respect to the analysis of marketing strategies, the collected data at the same time instantiate and legitimize marketers’ communication advice about humanizing one’s business exchange.

The sponsorship performance cycle: longitudinal evidence of sponsors’ contribution to Formula One team achievement

Purpose A sponsorship performance cycle of business-to-business (B2B) exchange is conceptualized, where distinct types of resources are invested by sponsoring firms into sponsored properties and the competitive success of those properties enhances returns to sponsors. While the latter return channel in this cycle is well-documented, the former investment channel has remained opaque. Recognizing this empirical missing link, this paper aims to illuminate the investment channel through a longitudinal analysis. Design/methodology/approach Based on 50 years of Formula One (F1) team and sponsor alliances, this study models the effects of three different sponsorship categories on team performance in the annual F1 constructors’ championship. Findings The results demonstrate that each incremental sponsor offering performance-based resources is associated with four additional team points in the championship, controlling for factors such as past success and team experience. Conversely, sponsors offering access to financial or operational resources have no competitive impact. This performance-based sponsor effect is illustrated in models of the current and following seasons. Research limitations/implications In combination with related literature, this study substantiates a complete sponsorship performance cycle in the motorsports context. Practical implications The findings contribute an empirically-based strategy for sustainable sponsorship support that emphasizes acquisition of performance resources in the business-to-business exchange over operational or strictly financial alternatives. Originality/value While scholars have discerned that sponsors invest heterogeneous resources into sponsored properties, and the competitive success of those properties can enhance returns to sponsors, this study demonstrates that particular resources invested by sponsors are related to the property’s competitive success.

A seller perspective on economic and non-economic satisfaction as precursors to formalisation, specific investments and dependence in business relationships

PurposeSeen from the seller's point of view, this study examines economic and non-economic satisfaction as distinct conceptual variables, and tests how the constructs relate to each other and to the business transactional cost variables of formalisation, specific investments and dependence.Design/methodology/approachData was collected from 213 key informants from Norwegian companies involved in business-to-business marketing. Structural equation modelling was used to test the posited hypotheses.FindingsThe findings show that sellers' economic satisfaction exerts a positive influence on non-economic satisfaction and on formalisation, while its posited influence on specific investments was not found to be significant. Formalisation was, however, not significantly influenced by seller non-economic satisfaction. Specific investment was positively influenced by seller non-economic satisfaction. The influence of formalisation on specific investments and dependence was significant. Specific investments were also found to be positively influenced by dependence.Research limitations/implicationsThe study reveals the importance of assessing both economic and non-economic satisfaction in trying to understand sellers' behaviour in business-to-business markets.Practical implicationsThe findings show the need for managers to ensure economic satisfaction, as its affects non-economic satisfaction.Originality/valueThis study contributes to a better understanding of satisfaction in business-to-business exchange relationships and its relationship with transactional cost constructs based on a seller's perspective.

Rock Advertising Ltd v MWB Business Exchange Centres Ltd [2018] UKSC 24

Essential Cases: Contract Law provides a bridge between course textbooks and key case judgments. This case document summarizes the facts and decision in Rock Advertising Ltd v MWB Business Exchange Centres Ltd [2018] UKSC 24. The document also includes supporting commentary from author Nicola Jackson.

What’s smart about smart specialization – a new EU innovation strategy or more of the same?

Purpose The aim of this paper is to outline what the intended benefits the smart specialization strategy (S3) is meant to create, and through what policy measures; that is, to shed light over what underpinnings S3 is based on, and if the measures based on these can affect the relations between “academia, businesses, and local authorities” – where the public and the private actors might have partly overlapping interests, but with different needs and rationales. Design/methodology/approach The research design of this paper is based on the industrial marketing and purchasing network approach, that is, the empirical observation that business exchange has a content, which affects and gives imprints on the actors engaged in the exchange. To determine whether the S3 strategy in general, and in the two investigated regions in particular, can affect the embedding of innovations in using, producing and developing settings, and if so how, this study applied the actors–resources–activities model. In addition to investigation of the S3 strategy in general, two case studies were conducted, one each in two European Union regions with rather different business and academic research characteristics: the Marche region in Italy and the Uppsala region in Sweden. Findings The S3 measures rest on the judgement of which “domains” to support can be made by policy actors without deeper analysis of how the assumed firms representing these domains are related in terms of how resources are combined and activated. Instead, the S3 policy analysis is based on local policy organizations desk table investigations of what appears as innovative. Hence, in practice, the key S3 measure is still to transfer knowledge from the public to the private sector. This entails that support in terms of how to create change in established resources interfaces, which is a main source of innovation to which both established and emerging localized firms are related, remains out of policy sight. Originality/value The ambition with this paper is to discuss what changes S3 – with the ambition to develop and match academic research to business needs – implies and what underpinnings it is resting on. Hence, the focus is directed to what new types of policy arrangements are supposed to result in what types of benefits – and last but not least, the ability for these to interfere with businesses which are interconnected across spatial borders.

The Institutions of Roman Markets

The chapter analyzes the basis of the market economy in classical Rome, from the perspective of personal vs impersonal exchange and focusing on the role of the state in providing market-enabling institutions. It starts by reviewing the central conflict in all exchanges between those holding and those acquiring property rights, and how solving it requires reducing information asymmetry without endangering the security of property. Relying on a model of the social choice of institutions, the chapter identifies the demand and supply factors driving the institutional choices made by the Romans, and examines the economic circumstances that influenced these factors in the classical period of Roman law. Comparing the predictions of the model with the main solutions used by Roman law in the areas of property, business exchange, and the enforcement of personal obligations allows the chapter to propose alternative interpretations for some salient institutions that have been subject to controversy in the literature, and to conclude with an overall positive assessment of the market-enabling role of the Roman state.

“Thick or thin”? Policy and the different conceptualisations of business interaction patterns

Purpose The prestigious policy advisor, World Economic Forum (WEF), underlines that “governments, businesses and civil society organisations” must find “new ways of tackling the systemic risks that affect us all”. Paradoxically, policy’s and politicians’ great trust in the basic forces of the business world is accompanied with a disinterest in how they are captured in analytical approaches. The purpose of this paper is to discuss what consequences different approaches to interaction present for policy attempts to use business forces to achieve change. Design/methodology/approach The discussion of theoretical approaches available for policy aiming to use the basic forces of business exchange for efficiency, innovation and industrial/societal renewal in specific directions is designed as follows: The authors identify two main choices of dimensions in the conceptualisation of business exchange, based on the acknowledgement of thin or thick interactions. The authors discuss how these are related to how interaction patterns appear in empirical studies of exchange. Based on the identification of conceptualisations and empirical findings, the authors discuss the ability for the public sphere to use the basic characteristics of business exchange to cope with societal challenges. Findings Research experiences on thick interaction and its consequences, that businesses and their input and output are interdependent, systemic and promote certain development paths, are largely ignored in approaches used in policy circles. Instead, policy advisors’ and policy commissioners’ understanding of business interaction patterns is coloured by mainstream economies assumption of thin interaction. The content and function of the market as depicted in this tradition are within EU, the basic foundation for legal regulations and limitations of businesses interaction patterns. Simply put, actors as well as the activities and resources that they are related to are approached as independent. Research limitations/implications This paper is focussed on the conceptual underpinnings of contemporary policy advices and commissions. This paper does not investigate deviations from these advices and commission made by policy practitioners on a local level Practical implications The message given by theoretical approaches recognising thick interaction is that the thicker it is, the more intervening, broader and more differentiated the policy tools and measures have to be. But that also puts high demands on policy actors on all levels to have both general and specific knowledge about thick interaction patterns. However, given the big challenges the society is facing, increased speed of change and, above all, increased influence over the direction of change are needed. Social implications WEF recognises the systemic features of the contemporary challenges to society with climate change in the foreground, and it stresses the need for finding new ways for public bodies and private businesses to cooperate to solve this. This implies the need to consider what theoretical approaches that should guide policy advice and measures. Hence, there is a need for the use of more sophisticated analytical approaches to the collective level, instead of those relying on that the interaction pattern of the business world is thin, straightforward and easy manageable. Originality/value This paper takes a novel approach to policy advice and policy commissions through focussing on what kind of theoretical concepts and approaches that actually are available for policy advisors and policy commissioners interested in using the basic forces of business exchange to increase efficiency and innovation in the public setting in general and furthermore to solve specific problems and to create new, specific development paths. Hence, both approaches adopted and neglected by policy are considered.

Rock Advertising Ltd v MWB Business Exchange Centres Ltd [2018] UKSC 24

Essential Cases: Contract Law provides a bridge between course textbooks and key case judgments. This case document summarizes the facts and decision in Rock Advertising Ltd v MWB Business Exchange Centres Ltd [2018] UKSC 24. The document also includes supporting commentary from author Nicola Jackson.

Koffman & Macdonald's Law of Contract

Koffman & Macdonald’s Law of Contract provides a clear, academically rigorous, account of the contract law which is written in a style which makes it highly accessible to university students new to legal study. It works from extensive consideration of the significant cases, to provide students with a firm grounding in the way the common law functions. There are chapters on formation, certainty, consideration, promissory estoppel, intention to create legal relations, express and implied terms, classification of terms, the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977, Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts, mistake, misrepresentation, duress and undue influence, illegality, unconscionability, privity, performance and breach, frustration, damages, and specific enforcement, as well as companion website chapters on capacity and an outline of the law of restitution. Many new cases and legislative developments are covered in the ninth edition, such as Armchair Answercall Ltd v People in Mind Ltd, Blue v Ashley, Cavendish Square Holding BV v Talal El Makdessi, ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis,Globalia Business Travel S.A.U. (formerly TravelPlan S.A.U.) of Spain v Fulton Shipping Inc of Panama, Marks and Spencer plc v BNP Paribas Securities Services Trust Company (Jersey) Ltd,MWB Business Exchange Centres Ltd v Rock Advertising Ltd, Patel v Mirza, Phones 4U Ltd (In Administration) v EE Ltd. This edition has been updated to include major legislative developments including the Consumer Rights Act 2015, which now encompasses, and makes some changes to, the unfair terms regime, which was previously provided by the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999, as well as removing, and taking on board, the consumer elements of the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977.