Purpose-Social media brand pages have become instrumental in enabling customers to voluntarily participate in providing feedback/ideas for improvement and collaboration with others that contribute to the innovation effort of brands. However, research on mechanisms which harness these specific customer engagement behaviours (CEB) in branded social media platforms is limited. Based on the stimulus-organism-response paradigm, this study investigates how specific online-service design characteristics in social media brand pages induce customer-perceived value perceptions, which in turn, stimulate feedback and collaboration intentions with customers. Design/methodology/approach-Data collected from 654 US consumers of brand pages on Facebook were used to empirically test the proposed framework via structural equation modelling. Findings-The theoretical framework found support for most hypothesized relationships showing how online-service design characteristics induce an identified set of customer value perceptions that influence customer feedback and collaboration intentions. Research limitations/implications-The sample is restricted to customer evaluations of brand pages on Facebook in the USA. Practitioners are advised to maximize online-service design characteristics of content quality, brand page interactivity, sociability and customer contact quality as stimulants that induce brand learning value, entitativity value and hedonic value. This then translates to customer feedback and collaboration intentions towards the brand page. Originality/value-The findings have important implications for the design and optimization of online services in the customer engagementinnovation interface to harness CEBs for innovation performance.

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The importance of graduate attributes is increasingly recognized internationally in higher education and by industry, government, and accrediting bodies. However, integrating the development of graduate attributes, such as critical thinking and critical reflection, has proved challenging in business education. This article demonstrates the value of constructive alignment for integrating graduate attributes into an intensive marketing course. This illustrative Australian study traces the integration of two graduate attributes from course design, through active student engagement in a range of learning activities, to various assessments of student learning outcomes using standards-based assessment criteria. The study recommends that graduate attributes are expressed as learning outcomes and aligned with assessment criteria, that students' awareness of graduate attributes and their value is developed, that relevance for students' future marketing careers is embedded into learning activities, that substantial opportunities for practice in developing generic skills is offered, that formal and informal feedback from lecturers and peers is provided, and that a programwide approach to developing and integrating graduate attributes is adopted. Finally, the implications for enhancing employability skills of new business professionals and for institutions meeting the assurance of learning standards required for business school accreditation by bodies such as Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, European Quality Improvement System, and Community of European Management Schools and International Companies are considered.

PurposeThis study seeks to draw on the strategy implementation approach and the resource‐based view of the firm (RB theory) to investigate the relationships among competitive strategies (i.e. differentiation and cost‐leadership), responsive market orientation (RMO), proactive market orientation (PMO) and firm performance. The purpose is to show that competitive strategies have a significant effect on market orientation and market orientation has a significant effect on firm performance.Design/methodology/approachThe paper designed a mail‐survey that was sent to senior executives, which resulted in 189 usable surveys. Data were analysed using partial least squares (PLS) to test the hypotheses.FindingsThe findings show that both competitive strategies influence RMO and PMO, which then influence firm performance. However, the results show that differentiation strategy has a stronger influence on RMO and PMO than cost‐leadership strategy, and that PMO has a stronger influence on performance than RMO.Research limitations/implicationsThe study examined one set of capabilities (RMO and PMO); research opportunities exist for identifying other firm capabilities (e.g. organisational learning) and their relationships with competitive strategies.Practical implicationsStrategy implementation is a valid route to firm performance. Therefore, marketing managers must simultaneously develop competitive strategies and RMO and PMO to obtain increased firm performance outcomes.Originality/valueThe study conceptualises market orientation as RMO and PMO, and suggests that this treatment of market orientation is important in understanding its role in the competitive strategies of firms and consequent firm performance.