Author: sarahcawthra

How UWE is helping to make Bristol’s food healthier, inclusive and sustainable

Author sarahcawthra | Posted on

The Bristol Eating Better Awards (BEBA) were launched in 2017 to promote healthier eating and more sustainable food. Since then, 55 early years settings, 120 schools and 260 businesses have achieved the award.

Given their Association for Events Management Education funded research on the experiences of UK outdoor events attendees with medical, religious and lifestyle dietary requirements (e.g. vegan/vegetarian), Clare MacKay and Dr Ed Little were invited to evaluate the awards.

In collaboration with Bristol City Council (BCC) and Bristol Food Network, Clare and Ed redeveloped the criteria for the early years, school, and business awards.

Making dietary requirements part of the menu

Clare and Ed’s research informed the development of core award actions requiring businesses to ensure that menus include options for customers with dietary requirements, list the ingredients in dishes, and are displayed to make this information accessible. 

These changes will make eating in Bristol more inclusive for consumers with dietary requirements. They will mitigate the anxiety these consumers experience when faced with eating outside of the home, and the risk of relying on service staff to relay dietary information to them correctly.

Consumers with dietary requirements experience stigma – from both impatient serving staff and customers queuing behind them – when trying to ascertain if there is food available that they can eat. 

The new core actions will help to alleviate this stigma – which originates from describing dietary requirements as ‘special’ or as ‘restrictions’. This marginalises people with dietary requirements and perpetuates their structural inequality. To address these issues, the updated award encourages businesses to:

  • Train staff so they can respond to customers with dietary requirements in an empathetic and helpful way.
  • Avoid describing dietary requirements as ‘special’ or ‘restrictions’
  • Communicate that customers with dietary requirements are welcome

Though open to all Bristol businesses selling food, of note given Clare and Ed’s research, is the impact of the BEBA on events held in the city: Those directly commissioned by BCC Events team will be obliged to prioritise food vendors who hold the award and organisers staging events on BCC land are also encouraged to do so via the site permissions process.

Clare MacKay said:

“We hope our contribution to the business award helps to normalise catering for dietary requirements and promotes the inclusion of Bristol citizens, visitors, and tourists with dietary requirements, mitigating the risks they face when eating outside of their home, and enhancing their wellbeing.” 

“We would like to thank Bristol Food Network for connecting us with David Hudgell at Bristol City Council who led the BEBA evaluation, and David for inviting us to contribute.”

Solving real world problems

The evaluation and development of the Bristol Eating Better Award is an example of how UWE Bristol can have an impact beyond the university.

The updated award is now open to businesses, schools and early years providers across Bristol, providing a framework to help them offer food that is healthier, inclusive and sustainable.

David Hudgell, Public Health Specialist for Bristol City Council, who led the BEBA evaluation, said:

“Clare and Ed’s involvement in the Bristol Eating Better Award review ensures that dietary requirements are embedded within the criteria for Bristol’s businesses. This will impact businesses and settings across the city, from event traders, market stall holders, adult social care venues and many more to improve accessibility of food for people with dietary requirements.”

“I would like to thank Clare and Ed for their contributions in this process and ongoing work to support food for people with dietary requirements at events.”

Businesses can find out more about the Bristol Eating Better Award and how to apply here https://www.bristol.gov.uk/bristol-eating-better-award

Clare MacKay and Dr Ed Little are available for consultancy, please contact Clare.Mackay@uwe.ac.uk

The hidden role of ‘Boundary Spanners’ in building B2B trust

Author sarahcawthra | Posted on

Trust in a business-to-business (B2B) context is frequently cited but often poorly understood. Yet its importance continues to grow as a central driver of successful and enduring B2B relationships.

Research into B2B trust demonstrates that trust is not static. It is dynamic and can be proactively developed. Recent doctoral research has offered a refined definition of trust in a B2B context:

“The willingness to be vulnerable to another party and the decision to engage in actions based upon an interpretation of their ability, credibility, and the expectations of mutual value exchange over time”
(Hollyoake, 2020).

Building on this foundation, the Applied Marketing Research Group aims to extend this work by exploring trust development more deeply through the lens of ‘boundary spanner relationships’. Specifically, the research focuses on the pivotal role boundary spanners play in the development of relational trust.

For those unfamiliar with the term, boundary spanners are, in simple terms, individuals or agents who operate across organisational boundaries, working on both sides of a relationship. According to Möllering (2002), boundary spanners are responsible for managing the “leap of faith” inherent in trust development, including the identification, mitigation, and management of risk (see Figure 1).

The trust building potential of ‘Boundary Spanners’:

Neal, Neal and Brutzman (2022), in ‘The activities boundary spanners undertake in the development of trust-based relationships’, identify a range of definitions associated with boundary spanning. They describe it as work that enables exchange between the production and use of knowledge in order to support evidence-informed decision-making within a specific context.

Similarly, Bednarek et al. (2018) define boundary spanning as facilitating the exchange between knowledge creation and its application, while Posner and Cvitanovic (2019) emphasise the role of individuals or organisations that actively enable this process.

Crucially, the boundary spanner role is not governed by a fixed or prescriptive set of rules (Perrone, Zaheer, & McEvily, 2003). Instead, it is often open to interpretation and shaped by multiple, complex and sometimes conflicting pressures (Kahn et al., 1964). As a result, trust development cannot be predicted solely on the basis of formal role definitions. To understand how trust emerges, we must look beyond job titles and examine how roles are enacted in practice.

Boundary spanners play a critical mitigating role in the transition from relational intent (intangible) to relational action (tangible). By reducing perceived vulnerability, they lessen the magnitude of the “leap of faith” required to move a relationship forward. This supports earlier work by Näslund (2012, p.23), who suggests that while interpretation and expectation are largely cognitive processes, the leap of faith relies more heavily on affective elements.

Herein lies a paradox.

While the theory of trust development appears relatively straightforward, its application in practice is far more complex.

The original doctoral research into B2B relational trust provided insights into the dynamic nature of trust, how it operates, its impact on B2B relationships and how it can be proactively developed. This work led to the development of the B2B Trust DNA™ Model (Figure 1).

Existing literature addresses several aspects of the boundary spanner’s role in managing the progression of relationships. When considered alongside the Trust DNA™ Model, two key themes begin to emerge:

  • The activities boundary spanners undertake to mitigate actual or perceived risk when moving from intangible to tangible trust and the actors involved in this process.
  • The specific elements of the boundary spanner role on both the customer and supplier sides that contribute to the development of trust-based relationships.

Exploring these themes offers an opportunity to better understand the nuances of the boundary spanner role and how it can be deliberately leveraged to strengthen trust and improve relationships. Understanding how trust is built can inform capability and competency development, role design and targeted development programmes for both early-career professionals and those already operating in boundary-spanning roles. It also has wider organisational and leadership implications, particularly where leaders themselves act as boundary spanners or are responsible for leading inter-organisational relationships.

The Applied Marketing Research Group is currently at the initial stage of this next phase of research into relationship trust building. The project is designed to generate insight into the two themes outlined above and will be conducted in three stages:

  1. Qualitative shaping
  2. Qualitative refining
  3. Quantitative defining

If you would like to learn more about the project or explore opportunities to get involved, please feel free to contact Dr Ed Little, Dr Mark Hollyoake or Professor Mario Vafeas.

Academic Spotlight: Professor Mario Vafeas

Author sarahcawthra | Posted on

Meet Mario Vafeas, Professor of Marketing and Leader of the Applied Marketing Research Group

With a background in consultancy and an interest in research with real-world impact, Professor Mario Vafeas brings industry insight and academic rigour together in his work. In this conversation, he reflects on how marketing relationships, collaboration and organisational engagement can drive better outcomes for both businesses and employees.

Firstly, what prompted your transition from consultancy into academia?

I think some people have a natural inclination towards academic work. Even when I worked in industry, I never really stepped away from academia. I completed an MBA part time and then a PhD. After that, it felt like a natural progression to move fully into academic life.

Before making the switch, I tried teaching as an associate lecturer while still in consultancy. I really enjoyed it, the combination of research and teaching really appealed to me. So in 2010, I made the move into academia full time and I’ve never looked back.

Do you ever miss working in industry?

Not really, because I don’t feel I’ve ever left it. I’ve always stayed engaged with external firms through my research and projects like Knowledge Transfer Partnerships.

“My role brings together teaching, academic research and external engagement, that mix is what I enjoy most. It’s not a complete departure from industry, it’s more of an evolution.”

Could you share a project where your research has been translated into practice?

For many years, I focused on ‘value co-creation’ – how organisations work together to create value rather than delivering it unilaterally. My research explored how marketing agencies and their clients in the creative industries can collaborate more effectively to strengthen relationships and outcomes.

That work attracted a lot of interest from agencies and clients alike. I’ve delivered workshops, seminars and consultancy sessions to help them apply these ideas in practice. Helping them to improve collaboration and get more value from those partnerships.

More recently, I’ve been working with my colleague Dr Ed Little on something a little different, a concept called ‘workplace alienation’ (when employees feel disconnected from their work). We’ve explored how ownership models shape engagement and motivation by comparing conventional organisations with employee-owned firms. (Examples of such firms include John Lewis and Aardman Animations.)

Our findings are generating interest from both businesses and organisations like the Employee Ownership Association, who are exploring how our insights can help promote employee ownership and ultimately reduce alienation at work.

How has your industry experience influenced your research interests?

It’s been fundamental. My early career in consultancy was all about managing relationships between agencies and clients. I was fascinated by why some relationships thrived while others broke down.

That curiosity led to my PhD, which examined how creative agencies and clients could build longer-lasting, more effective partnerships. In the creative industries, around 80 per cent of client-agency relationships don’t last beyond five years – that’s incredibly inefficient. My research looked at what makes these relationships work better and last longer, which continues to inform my work today.

What advice would you give to early-career researchers hoping to make meaningful contributions in marketing?

“Find topics that sit at the intersection of academic value and practical relevance. It’s important that your research contributes to academic knowledge but also that it can be applied and have real-world impact.”

I’ve always tried to ensure my work ticks both boxes: that it’s publishable and interesting to academic audiences, but also something I can share externally with businesses or practitioners. When those two worlds overlap, that’s where the most valuable research happens.

Outside academia, what inspires your thinking?

A lot of my ideas come from everyday life. My research on workplace alienation, for example, grew out of personal experiences – wondering why service quality varies so much between firms and realising it’s often linked to how motivated employees feel.

We all have personal experiences as consumers and collaborators. Reflecting on those moments often sparks new questions and sometimes, new research ideas.

Find out more about Mario, his research and how to get in touch here.