PUBLISHED PAPERS AND ARTICLES

Given the youthfulness of the marketing research field, much virgin territory remains dark and undiscovered. At Ask Afrika we are not satisfied living with the guesses and assumptions of the past – an exercise tantamount to the sailors of yore assuming dragons lay in unexplored regions.....

Choosing a marketing agency which is on the cutting edge of developments can reveal undiscovered treasure, where dragons once lived. Ultimately our clients benefit from our constant yearning for improvement.

Much of our R & D results are published in the form of conference and journal papers, which explore not only issues which are currently considered topical, but also those we anticipate will have future relevance.

• Craig Kolb & Andrea Rademeyer, (2004) “Cracking the Crystal Ball: An empirical analysis of approaches to forecasting aggregate and individual switching behaviour in developing cellular phone markets”, November, Esomar Telecommunications Conference – Brussels Belgium, November 2004. No link available due to copyright restrictions.
  
  
• Craig Kolb & Andrea Rademeyer (2005), “An empirical analysis of Markov and logistic model predictive accuracy in the cellular market”, May, SAMRA: Fact Fantasy & Fiction Conference, Cape Town. read more...
  
  
• Craig Kolb (2005), “To what extent do corporate governance and trust matter? An analysis of the impact of corporate governance and organisational trust on employee loyalty”, 4th Global Conference on Business & Economics; June 26-28, 2005; Oxford University, Oxford, UK. read more...

• Craig Kolb (2005), “Concept Test Accuracy and Consumer Uncertainty: Propositions and Empirical Verification”, Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy Conference: Broadening the boundaries, 5-7th December 2005, Freemantle Perth, Western Australia.
  
  
• Craig Kolb & Peter Millican (2006), “Connecting with Elizabeth: Using artificial intelligence as a data collection aid”, “Connections”, MRS annual conference, 22-24 March 2006, Barbican London.

Ask Afrika disseminates the latest spin-offs from core research papers, and the latest thinking in the form of easy to read articles. Many of these have been published in Management Today, the second most popular management and leadership journal amongst South African readers after Harvard Business Review.

New car research in a bad economy
By Craig F. Kolb, Ask Afrika, published on the MARFA website; December 2008. read more

Trust the bedrock of future South African business success
By Craig F. Kolb, Ask Afrika; August 2008. read more

Re-evaluating the Net Promoter Score
By Craig F. Kolb, Ask Afrika, posted on Bizcommunity website; March 2008
read more..

Fred Reichheld under the microscope
By Craig F. Kolb, Ask Afrika, September 2007
Fred Reichheld, an American loyalty guru, has argued that the days of customer satisfaction surveys are over. Instead we should only be measuring customer loyalty. According to Reichheld all that is necessary is a single question, which
he labels ‘The Ultimate Question’.click here to download pdf...

Quantifying the contribution of service quality to brand value
By Craig F. Kolb, Ask Afrika
How important is service to maintaining brand equity?
While intuitively most brand managers know that service excellence is one of the contributors to brand equity, its contribution is rarely quantified. click here ...

Service quality: How to deliver the goods
by Craig F. Kolb, Ask Afrika, Published in Management Today, September 2005 , Vol 21, No. 8
It may seem obvious, but before trying to determine how to go about improving something, you need to accurately describe what it is that needs improvement. This is especially necessary when dealing with a concept as fluid and difficult to pin down as service quality. read more...

Delightful service - from the inside out
by Craig F. Kolb, Ask Afrika, Published in the July 2005 issue of Management Today (SAQI Quality Edge).
When the sea receded from the beaches of Indonesia, exposing the ocean floor, it was a clear indication that something was wrong. Unfortunately it was too late for the many who couldn't respond in time, and for those who didn't understand the meaning of the strange phenomenon. The Tsunami hit a few minutes later, and a similar scenario was repeated across other nations in the Indian Ocean; leaving over 200,000 dead in its wake. read more...

Service quality: The rules of the game
By Craig F. Kolb, Ask Afrika, Published in the June 2005 issue of Management Today (SAQI Quality Edge).
A king, the social pinnacle of medieval society would typically have been the wealthiest member of his society. But how would his living standards have compared to someone living in the 21st century, bearing in mind that, in the Middle Ages, you were well-off if you had furniture. Of course, there is no comparison, and given the choice between DSTV and being a medieval ruler, most of us (except perhaps the odd power mogul) would choose the former. Luxury is in some sense relative, and the same applies to service quality perceptions.
read more...

Service quality: where everyone else is and where you should be
By Craig F. Kolb, Ask Afrika, Published in the May 2005 issue of Management Today (SAQI Quality Edge).
So what if service levels are lower than the competition, does it really matter?
read more...