Apologies for cross posting
I hope that this is of interest to many of you:

The HRM seminar series
Thursday 6th March 2008
Bass Management Centre 329 - 4-6pm

Presents
Professor Hugh Willmott, Cardiff Business School

Political Cultural Economy and the Financialization of Brand Equity

In this talk Professor Willmott explores the co-development of brand identity and equity by marketing experts and consumers, arguing that this immaterial labour process has been making an increasingly significant contribution to the generation of surplus value. The rise of a discourse of financialization has encouraged a reorientation of brand management to the re-evaluation of brand equity as a smart way of adding value for shareholders. Advocating a form of analysis that he terms political cultural economy, he shows how the connection between brand value and shareholder value has been articulated, legitimated and leveraged by brand valuation consultancies and a small group of marketing academics. The calculated investment in branding, and an associated disinvestment in, or outsourcing of, manufacturing, has become an increasingly strategic means of delivering shareholder value. And the growing dependency of consumers upon brands for their sense of meaning and esteem enables companies to extract rents from this dependence.

HUGH WILLMOTT is Research Professor in Organization Studies, Cardiff Business School. He has previously held professorial positions at the Universities of Cambridge and Manchester and visiting appointments at the Universities of Copenhagen, Lund and Cranfield. He has a strong interest in the application of social theory, especially poststructuralist thinking, to the field of management and business. He has published over twenty books and his work has also appeared in a wide range management and social science journals. Full details can be found on his homepage :

http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/close/hr22/hcwhome

Bass Management Centre 4-6pm, drinks and light refreshments will be provided
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