Search

In recent years building societies have experienced dramatic change in the markets in which they operate. Deregulation has provided societies with the powers to enter new and very different markets. Societies wishing to re-work their strategies to exploit the new opportunities however did so with the knowledge that their own traditional markets had also to be protected from new competitors. Deregulation had provided access into the savings and mortgage markets to their natural competitors, the banks and insurance companies. The selection, by societies, of appropriate strategies thus became critical to their future success. Whilst recent studies have investigated the likely strategies to be pursued by societies in response to market change, their findings offer little guidance to societies attempting to re-work their current strategies. Previous studies failed both to consider the appropriateness of all strategic options to different building societies and ignored the likely response of consumers to strategic change. The aim of the research was to identify the marketing strategies most appropriate to different building societies from a consumer perspective. Image was selected as the vehicle with which to study the likely response of consumers to change and thus evaluate the appropriateness of different strategies. Three generic marketing strategies were identified: Differentiation; Focus; and Cost Leadership. The Building Society Image Model was constructed to depict the composition and structure of image as perceived by the consumer. Utilising this model the appropriateness of the three strategies to different building societies was considered. Whilst support was found for both the Differentiation and Focus strategies, the appropriateness of the Cost Leadership strategy was questioned. In particular the applicability of the diversification strategy currently adopted by the majority of societies is challenged.

The aims of the study were to elucidate the stratigraphy, sedimentology and geochemistry of latest Jurassic - late Cretaceous Campania - Lucania platform carbonates in southern Italy. Eight formations and fifteen biozones have been proposed and described, representing platform carbonates and basin margin sediments. Most formations are isochronous, but the Lower Cretaceous Monte Faito Formation is diachronous, becoming younger and thinner from northwest to southeast across Campania, as a result of tectonically induced differential subsidence. The biostratigraphy indicates a late Cretaceous fauna/floral divergence between the Campania - Lucania and other Periadriatic platforms from a common late Jurassic biota. The sedimentary sequence reflects the development of a Bahamian type epioceanic platform. Restricted environments were characteristic of the late Jurassic and early Cretaceous while open marine, cyclic peritidal sediments were widespread during the late Cretaceous. Basin margin sediments include Jurassic pelagic radiolarian limestones, Cretaceous debris flows and Tertiary planktonic foraminiferal limestones. The western margin of the platform was probably a fault -bounded escarpment. Two large scale transgressive - regressive sequences (late Jurassic - mid Cretaceous) partly correspond to eustatic sea level fluctuations. The relatively simple diagenetic history has been locally complicated by dolomitisation and / or silicification. Early cements are uncommon, locally restricted and are non-luminescent. Late burial cements luminesce dull orange. Fabrics indicate several phases of dolomitisation; early syndepositional types occur but dolomitisation was largely the result of burial diagenesis. Magnesium was probably derived from pore fluids released by the compaction of shales in the Tyrrhenian Basin to the west. Geochemical trends reflect clay minerals and diagenetic history particularly dolomitisation. Palaeogeographically the Campania - Lucania and Latium - Abruzzi platforms were probably part of the same structure during the late Jurassic and early Cretaceous, becoming increasingly separated from each other through the late Cretaceous, during the closure of Tethys.