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The number and proportion of older people in the UK are increasing and it has been found that this population segment is a nutritional risk group. Food choice research and health promotion reports have sought to identify the influences on diet and the food retailing sector has been found to particularly impact upon older people. Low income, poor mobility and an inability to access food shops disadvantage many. This paper considers the food shopping experiences of older consumers by identifying, through critical incident technique, positive and negative aspects of the food shopping activity. A total of 120 interviews were conducted and 248 incidents collected from people aged 60/65+ in various locations in Scotland. Content analysis produced eight primary categories and 22 sub‐categories of key elements in the shopping experience. The main factors that contribute to the quality of the shopping experience were merchandise related, retail practices and staff issues. The internal store environment, accessibility, external shopping environment and personal factors were also identified and featured both positive and negative incidents, with social aspects only having positive incidents.

The growing numbers of older people represent an important market segment for retailers, particularly the food retail sector. The dominance of the food multiples and their growth strategies have been criticised for contributing to some older consumers being disadvantaged. This paper considers the satisfaction levels of older consumers in Scotland, with their food‐shopping experience. Drawing upon previous work by the author which identified the factors influencing satisfaction, 220 volunteers were recruited from various locations in Scotland and interviewed using a structured questionnaire. The survey focused on the main shopping trip. Results indicate that, whilst there is a general trend towards satisfaction, there are key areas of dissatisfaction, such as aspects of the products for sale (merchandise), the practices and procedures of the retailer (retail practices) and factors in the community which affected the shopping trip (external shopping factors). This suggests that policy‐makers seeking to encourage the participation of food retailers in health promotion need to recognise vulnerable sub‐groups of the older population and recognise that not all older consumers can signal their preferences in the marketplace.

Given the many potential negative factors that influence food choice behaviour in older people, it is important to understand the problem areas of food shopping. Uses critical incident technique (CIT) to elicit consumers’ stories of dissatisfying/satisfying shopping experiences and, where dissatisfied, identifies their expectations. Volunteers from a cross‐section of locations in Scotland were interviewed, eliciting 248 incidents. Results identified eight key elements contributing to the food shopping experience with all, except social aspects, having positive and negative incidents. Argues that the factors influencing the food shopping experience are much wider than previous research indicates and that, given the breadth of dissatisfaction across the elements, older consumers are lacking “power” within the marketplace. Expectations indicate that some consumers feel they do not have the ability to exercise any alternative to overcome their dissatisfaction.

THE vogue of the anthology is a peculiar and depressing symptom of contemporary taste. There is a wry significance in the fact that during the past ten years, when poetry has almost ceased to count as a cultural influence, anthologies have appeared in flocks. An anthology is a hold‐all, and value‐for‐money has a sure appeal in times of economic and intellectual bankruptcy. It is pleasant and convenient to have several hundred (in one case a thousand) pages of verse in handy compass and at a low price.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how the creativity of pupils and teachers is nurtured through the use of a virtual world (VW) within a sociotechnical network affecting pupils’ learning in a pilot secondary school.

The analysis is the result of a pluri-disciplinary systemic analysis involving didactics, sociology, psychology and management science on an individual, collective and systemic scale. This participatory action research is based on interviews and systematic observations in class, in-world and in the global ecosystem. Linguistic and multimodal analysis is applied to the data, through teacher monographs that hint at the teachers’ activity.

Pupils’ and teachers’ creativity appeared to be anchored within four main interdependent nurturing conditions the personal inclinations and professional interactions in the sociotechnical network sustaining the VW; a creative regulation allowing compromises with the institutional constraints of pedagogical control; avatars and 3 D boundary objects that act as a motor of teachers-pupils inquiry and creativity; the sociotechnical network that contributes, through the actors’ play, to bringing the organisational rules of the school towards an innovation trajectory, that in turns mediates success in the use and the adoption of the new technology.

Although this is a study within a specific school, the findings can be put to use by other pedagogical teams who would wish to integrate a VW to re-engage pupils.

The participatory design processes taking place within a sociotechnical network support teachers in the building of Virtual World scenarios negotiated with researchers and start-up developers.

The pedagogical use of a virtual world opens new learning engagement opportunities for the pupils through enhanced experiential learning and sustains the transformation of teachers’ professionality.

The authors’ approach differs from the previous educational VW literature, in that they integrate the teachers’ creativity and their pedagogical scripts into their study, within a systemic approach, thus requiring a wider theoretical framework, necessary for understanding the building of strategies and knowledge that foster teachers’ and pupils’ creativity in educational settings using a VW.

Following Airbnb’s recent turn to the luxury market, this paper aims to explore how Airbnb hosts construct meanings of luxury as enacted in their hosting practices.

Semi-structured interviews with 46 Airbnb hosts were undertaken using purposing sampling.

Study findings reveal that social and personal meanings of luxury manifest in host practice, with “home feeling” representing the epicentre of the luxury peer-to-peer (P2P) accommodation experience.

Although this study draws from host views, it represents a first attempt to empirically examine perceptions and applications of luxury within P2P accommodation. The study provides a conceptual framework which may serve as a point of departure for further research into which luxury service dimensions guests value.

The findings of the study carry implications to the wider hospitality context. Specifically, hospitality practitioners need to reconceptualize luxury hospitality provision to promote a “homotel” accommodation model which highlights the offering of physical and social luxury dimensions in addition to elements of personalized service and home-like hedonic benefits.

The study offers a conceptual framework of the luxury P2P accommodation servicescape, which identifies two distinct luxury offerings that may be informative to both P2P accommodation providers and hospitality practitioners.

The paper addresses the issue of the use of the Internet for the management of luxury brands. We investigate luxury managers’ attitudes towards the use of the Internet to promote their brands and also assess consumers’ opinions and behaviour concerning luxury brands Web sites. Finally, we present the results of a content analysis of a number of luxury brands sites. Any discrepancies between expectations and reality are investigated. Results indicate that reality falls short of the expectations of both managers and customers and that the interactive potential of the Internet is not exploited. Furthermore, there is evidence that the Internet works best as a communication than as a customer acquisition channel for luxury brands.

The purpose of this study is to examine how luxury and non-luxury brands portray women in social media advertising shedding light on their femvertising practices.

Quantitative content analysis and multiple correspondence analysis are used to examine female representations in the advertising of personal care products on social media. The sample includes brand posts from 15 brands on two social media platforms.

The results demonstrate that non-luxury brands use femvertising to a greater extent compared to luxury brands. In particular, this study shows that luxury brands rely more on stereotyped gender expressions and use more sexualisation in their advertising, relative to non-luxury brands.

This study provides an analysis of luxury and non-luxury brands’ femvertising practices on social media. In doing so, this study extends the study of femvertising to the context of luxury and social media, which is currently underexplored. In terms of practical implications, this study sheds light on the extent of the application of femvertising across luxury and non-luxury brands on social media.

The findings drive a number of suggestions for luxury marketers, including the use of more independent gender roles and more racial diversity in their social media advertising and the lessening of unrelated sexuality.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to compare femvertising practices of luxury and non-luxury brands on social media, delineating different facets of femvertising (e.g. gender roles, diversity, etc.) and extending scholarly understanding of the possible facets of this concept.