1
RESEARCH TOPIC LIST AND TITLES
__________________________________________________________________________
1. GENERAL STRATEGIC MANGEMENT TOPICS:
The enterprise and Operations: (SBM 3a Briek V Waes)
1. The relationship between planning, organizational structure, organizational culture,
and leadership style: elaboration of an hypothesis under which circumstances
organizational performance will enhance  to apply in an enterprise to choose
2. Implementation of change: organizational change : how to transform an organization
confirm the (new) corporate strategy. (product, services, types of client, etc.)
3. Organisational differences in missions, structures and processes and business
performance ( comparative research)
4.
The organisation of communication and co-operation within a enterprise and
business performances
5. Facilitation to the adaptation to technological changes.
6. Service quality and total quality management: impact and implementation plan
HRM - approach in the management of employee ( SBM 3a: Briek Van Waes,
Noortje Van der Poel)
1. Investigate if the organization meet the standards of the IP certificate
2. Investigate if and how (an) organization(s) apply performance management
(relation between strategy, objectives; individual and team objectives, appraisal,
reward)
3. Elaborate a customer or employee satisfaction measurement and recommend
quality improvement activities
4. Design a HRM plan within the organisation strategy
Investigate the transparency of the reward system in a company and the relation
with employees satisfaction
5. Investigate reward systems, empowerment systems and control procedures :
effectiveness, costs etc…
2
1
6. Facilitating development workforce
7. Change and crisis management
8. Organisational culture and management style
9.
Rentability and productivity in people performances
10 . HRM and Quality of service :crucial aspects to minimise costs and maintain the
quality Level
11. Implementation of organizational change : how to transform an
organization confirm the (new) corporate strategy. (products, services, types of
client, etc.)`
12. Organisational differences in missions, structures and processes and business
performance ( comparative research)
13. Service quality and total quality management: impact and implementation
plan
14. Elaborate a customer or employee satisfaction measurement and recommend
quality improvement activities
15. Views on quality, how do people see quality of services
16. How to keep the quality of tourism destinations high in the long term
2. GENERAL STRATEGIC MARKETING TOPICS
2.1. General:
1. The enterprise in its micro and macro environment ( Investigation in to the enterprise
strategy as an reaction to external pressures and in its competitor strengths and
weakness in the micro environment  to apply in a sector, enterprise to choose
2. The process of target marketing (segmentation, target and position)
3. Comparative research on business strategies in the hotelindustrie
4. Marketing communication: branding: investigation of the effectiveness of current
Marketing communication to define an strong brand and required communication
strategy.
5.
1
E-commerce as an marketing tool for an organisation: possibilities, consequences
and implementation
Sbm 2011 - 2012
3
2.2: CRM ( Pieter De Rooy) (rooy.h@nhtv.nl)
Customer loyalty and relationship marketing in the performing arts and in sports
In the past few decades, customer loyalty received a great deal of attention, both in
the academic world and in the industry. The use of loyalty or relationship marketing
strategies may result in customers developing a loyal attitude and displaying repeat
purchase behaviour. Also in the leisure industry, including performing arts and sports,
customer loyalty received attention. It’s a challenge to understand and explain
customer loyalty in the arts and sport and to understand effects of relationship
marketing strategies. Which factors play a role in increasing customer loyalty? Why
does someone attend a performing arts venue or football club only a few times a
year, and why does someone else attend a venue a few times a month? Students
can approach this topic in several ways, using qualitative or quantitative research, or
a mixed methods approach. They can for example think of following topics:
•
Creating customer loyalty in theatres
•
Constraints in creating customer loyalty
•
Understanding customer behaviour in attending professional football clubs
•
Relationship marketing strategies in professional football clubs
•
Creating customer knowledge in theatres for applying CRM-strategies
•
Implementation of CRM and change management
•
Understanding consumption motives in leisure to support value creation
2.3. Marketing communication:
7. Branding: research into effectiveness of current marketing communication to define a
strong brand and required communication strategy.
8. Accountability of marketing communication
9. Integrating the organization’s communications activities
10. Effective measurement of different marketing communication and distribution
channels based on Data driven marketing. (SMM12)
11. Research into the effectiveness of cross channel communication
2.4. Touristic and leisure experiences ( Sjanet de Geus)
- Experiencing tourism and leisure (and how to measure this)
- The added value of Experience marketing for the marketing strategy.
- Well-being in tourism and leisure and product development
- The psychological aspects of tourism and leisure in marketing research
- Social media as research methodology (content analysis)
- Social interaction during leisure/tourism as a marketing tool
- Experience marketing
4
- Experience marketing
- (Measuring) leisure and tourism motivation
- Events
- Well-being, tourism and leisure
- Consumer behavior
- Review studies regarding leisure/event/tourism experiences, motivation and satisfaction
Possible research questions (still open for students!)
- What is the influence of group size/social interaction on leisure/tourism experiences?
- Of which experiential elements is the tourist experience composed?
- What is the influence of the personal and situational factors on leisure/holiday experience?
- What is the influence of leisure/holiday experience on satisfaction/memories/emotions?
- How different is the holiday/eventleisure experience (in postmodern society) really from
everyday life? An empirical approach
- Construction of a self-report measure to gauge the strength of a leisure/tourism/event
experience (using the following post-experiences stages: evaluation, storing, reflection and
enrichment).
- If experience is defined by what is remembered, can memories be a new measurement
approach and how do we make a survey out if this?
- What is the relationship between experienced emotions during an event and memories
afterwards from a psychological perspective?
- What is the influence of cognitive dissonance on tourist evaluations concerning the tourist
experience, satisfaction and experienced emotions?
- Is it possible to measure experience realms as defined by Pine and Gillmore in events and
how are they related to satisfaction and consumer behaviors?
- How can content analysis of social media use during an event be used as innovative
experience research methodology?
5
2.5. E-business , E-commerce
The influence of internet users on each other to visit or avoid internet sites and the
possibilities for organisations to make use of this
The adoption of site usability activities to improve an organisation’s internet strategy and
tactics
Will the traditional internet be a barrier for a organisation's further e-business development.
Communication and Internet use: the use of modern information and communications
technology and the conceptual and societal impact.
What elements are determining the booking behaviour of seniors to book their vacation
trough the internet?
What influences the adoption of destination related apps by visitors? ( Marjolein Visser)
3.HOSPITALITY TOPICS: for and / or students Hotel or facility mamangement)
Strategic management topics
1. Management leadership style for maximalisation of GOP
= analysis management style and impact on business performance
2. HRM and Quality of service :crucial aspects to minimise costs and maintain the
quality level
3. Organizational behaviour within hotels: key aspects of education for the
new hospitality professional
Strategic marketing topics
1. Traditional distribution channels and e-commerce; a commercial strategy for the next
decade in ….. (sector, place, enterprise to chose…)
2. Organizational branding: target analysis and business recommendations
3. A strategic marketing plan for the low season
4. The hotel of the future: services and facilities for “the new consumer” generations
4 . SUSTAINIBILITY – MOBILITY – SOCIOLOGICAL PROFILES:
1.Follow up LCC price elasticity I
Analyze price elasticity for car, boat, train, air and bus on the route Amsterdam London and possible other routes. Survey with different scenarios: varying price, mode
of transport and other variables.
6
2. Follow up LCC price elasticity II
Price does not motivate consumers to choose a more sustainable mode of transport.
Perhaps comfort does? Desk research, interviews and survey.
3. Follow up LCC price perception
How to reduce/prevent misperception of air travel cost.
4.Hyper mobility
Desk research, interviews and survey. Explore the motives of hyper mobile persons
and their holiday experiences. Is there ground for the hypothesis that there is a
statistical correlation between happiness and hyper mobility?
5. General theme: for government or welfare organisations ( profit-non profit)
Poverty and tourism patterns
Poverty and leisure patterns
6 The realm of lifestyles on vacation patterns and consequences for the
Marketing Communications
7 Poverty and touristic participation ( Joop Hintzen)
8. Wedding presents: attributes, consequences, values and social norms.
What motivates invitees to choose for a specific wedding present? ( Marjolein Visser)
5. SOCIAL MEDIA: for and/or students Academy for Medi&Entertainment
Research lines that are running at the Academy for Digital Entertainment. All research lines
are innovative and deliver state of the art research. For all students that enroll in research
projects with any of these four lines, we aim for academic publication of their work.
5. 1. Fast Moving Consumer Goods (research lead: Allerd Peeters)
This research line uses the virtual supermarket that is projected at life-size in the media lab
(virtual reality lab). Respondents can walk around in the virtual environment much like in a
normal supermarket. The setting is used for eye-tracking research to find out what package
design (or other visual variable) stands out best in the shelf environment (product design
attention value). In a nutshell, this research line tries to generate academic insights into
optimal package design for FMCG products.
2. Location Based Services (research lead: Javed Khan)
This research line focuses on commercial messages and other services that use mobile devices
(and apps). For example: yout PDA (advanced cell phone) can use GPS to locate where you
are and because there is also a clock in your phone, ar around five or six a clock in the
afternoon it could give you some suggestions about nice restaurants that are near by. Actually:
there is no technical reason why your phone would not be able to also give you a view of the
menu before you choose for a certain restaurant, and maybe - using your FaceBook account your phone could also tell you that some of your friends are in the neighbourhood and might
like to join you to a certain restaurant. Of course, this level of sophistication is a future
perspective that might never happen exactly like this - but there obviously is a trend towards
mobile communication services. There is but one problem: we actually do not know how
7
people will use and adopt them. This research line uses virtual and genuine environments to
study the adoption, usability, and acceptability of innovative mobile communication apps.
3. In-game advertising (research lead: Dirk Jansen – Javed Khan)
Game production costs are sky rocking: every new release of a game title might have a 'times
ten' investment cost when compared to a previous game generation. Game players are not
likely to continue to pay more and more (times ten!) for increasingly beautiful and
sophisticated games. For that reason, the game industry is ready for business models that
(partially) draw on advertising revenues. There is but one problem: little is known about
creating effective in-game advertisements (we do know about television and radio, but that
proves to be a completely different ballgame, due to different psychological processes that are
at work when playing a game. This research line tries to generate knowledge about effective
in-game advertising by applying message processing psychology to game play and advertising
theory.
4. Bio psychological measures to optimize game design (research lead:Dirk Jansen)
An array of sophisticated measurement techniques (e.g., skin conductance, heart rate, muscle
tension, pupil dilation, alpha blocking) in psychology is used to indicate attention processes,
thought processes, and emotional responses. A quite a big selection of this equipment is
available at the medialab - and in this research line that equipment is used to pre-test pilot
versions of casual computer games. In this way, weak elements in the games are detected
without the need to use questionnaires (which for a lot of reasons (mostly psychological)
would be highly questionnable in this context). The aim of this research line is to pretest
games and to increase our knowledge (which worldwide is still very limited) about the use
and interpretation of these measures in interactive environments.
6. SOCIAL COMMUNITIES: research lead Adriaan Van Liempt (SBM – ILM)
Adriaan van Liempt’s research topics usually involve a big bit of sociology and economics.
The following three topics broadly indicate his current interests:
Flexi curity and transitional labour markets
Today’s labour markets, especially those in the Netherlands and other modern welfare
states, are regarded by some as rigorous systems that protect the individual employee too
much at the cost of employment. Employers are afraid to offer permanent jobs or jobs at all.
The idea behind flexicurity is that it emphasizes work security rather than job security. What
is interesting about this topic is how the individual worker thinks about trading ‘old school’
security (of a permanent job) for this so-called new kind of work-security. Governments and
employers are eager to implement flexicurity, but will it solve their problems and are workers
willing to change their perspective on flexibility and security?
Industrial relations in the Dutch and US IT industries
The IT industry is often regarded as an industry with unique characteristics. Well renowned
are its employees which are considered to be young, self aware, highly educated individuals
who know perfectly what they want and can make their own decisions. The notion of
individuality is something that easily links to the IT industry. In the Netherlands, where the IT
industry managed to develop outside the grasp of the unions for a long time, this notion is as
applicable as in any country associated with an Anglo-Saxon heritage. The industry’s
economic development also seems very erratic with periods of fast growth and steep
decline, and its subsequent effect on the demand for IT professionals. It will therefore be
interesting to take a look at the flexibility and security nexus within the IT industry to see
8
whether they have come up with different needs, solutions, or trade-offs, not found in other
industries.
Liveability, the neighbourhood and the 4th sector
Improving the liveability in neighbourhoods is hot on the political agenda as Wouter Bos
(current Minister of Finance) regards it as one of the spear points of the new Dutch cabinet.
The 4th sector may prove to be a big help in this approach as the 4th sector, also know as forbenefit companies, do not have to deal with the problems of the traditional sectors (Private
corporations, governmental organisations, and non-profit organisations). 4th sector
organisations are social responsible, financially sound, sustainable, effective, flexible, small
and inspiring organisations. In this perspective it is interesting to regard the neighbourhood
as a 4th sector. As All traditional sectors are present in most neighbourhoods, why not work
together to improve the liveability in these neighbourhoods? As this is a new topic, still a lot
of work needs to be done. The goal this year is to do a number case studies of best practices
and determine what can work and what not, under which circumstances, and for what type of
neighbourhood. An example would be the ‘City Munidal’-program in the Hague, where they
attempt to improve the neighbourhood by creating incentives for the local economy.
7. City and culture marketing : research lead: Kristel Zegers (SBM-ILM)
1. Regional, city and neighbourhood marketing
2. Leisure project management:
Shopping centre management/development
Development of multifunctional leisure projects
Development of cultural/creative clusters
3. Research questions dealing with the leisure sector in general (demand-supply;
4. Issues regarding the development of leisure economy; leisure activity & experience,
and the organisation of leisure
4. Research questions dealing with the creative economy. The prominent link between
culture and economy. (social and economic value of culture and creativity)
5. Research questions dealing with culture/creativity and urban development (cultural
management, creative entrepreneurship, creative clusters, european capital of culture)
6. Innovation and co-creation within the cultural/creative sector
7. Creative tourism
8. Medical Toursim: research lead: Tomas Mainil
-
The quantitative content analysis of medical tourism websites and the confrontation of
these findings with a medical tourism provider.
-
The analysis of Dutch and/or German Lay knowledge perspectives on travelling for
your health in view of strategy development for international health care providers
-
An international patient department feasibility study towards the satisfaction of its
international patients?
-
The role of cross-cultural management in medical Tourism – International health
care? company case study?
9
-
The role of Corporate Social Responsibility and the Medical Tourism sector –
company case study?!
-
The role of medical instruments in the spa industry: a marketing selling point or
wishful thinking?
-
The relation between health insurance and Medical Tourism: what is possible and
what is not?
-
A stakeholder analysis of the German health cluster attracting international patients
ALSO LOOK WWW.NHTV.NL/sbm , RESEARCH ABSTRACTS OF STUDENT
RESEARCH PROJECTS