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Non-profit organizations (NPOs) are exposed to a highly competitive environment in which they are forced to grow their commercial activity to acquire additional financial resources. This study aims to create an understanding of how NPOs involved in textile reuse as a revenue-generating programme manage their reverse supply chains (RSC).

The research involves an embedded single-case study of NPOs in Finland involved in post-use textile collection. The main data sources are semi-structured interviews and participant observations.

This study is inspired by the microfoundations movement and identifies the underlying microfoundations of the NPOs’ capabilities for managing RSC for textile reuse. The study contributes to the literature by demonstrating NPOs’ lower-level, granular practices and their adaptations for achieving quality outcomes in textile reuse.

The findings have context sensitivity and apply to the NPOs which operate in a context similar to Finland, such as in other Nordic countries.

This study continues the discussion on the adoption of “business-like” practices in the NPOs’ pursuit of additional revenue streams to finance humanitarian work. The findings of this study can also be transferred to the growing area of domestic textile circularity.

Using the case of NPOs in textile reuse, the study illustrates how RSC management can serve a social, non-profit cause and transform unwanted textile products into a source of fundraising for humanitarian work.

This enriches the understanding of NPOs’ practices within the scope of revenue-generating programmes by examining one of them – textile reuse through charity shops from an RSC perspective.

Fairy tales and their movie counterparts have, for decades, been a means of socialising children and audiences regarding gender (e.g., Shewmaker, 2015; Whitley, 2013). Specifically, Disney movies that portray fairy tales have strongly influenced how young children learn gender roles and gendered behaviours, yet deeper examination is needed of how Disney portrayals of masculinities have evolved among these films and across character type to understand how Disney may be reflecting or impacting dominant representations of masculinity that privilege certain identities and characteristics over others (Brode, 2016). While previous work has examined Pixar films as socio-culturally meaningful for representations of boyhood that remain grounded in traditional, hegemonic notions of masculinity (Wooden & Gillam, 2014), this chapter adds to the body of work by employing a critical content analysis of Disney films from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to Disney's most recent addition of Strange World to answer the questions about how masculinities are portrayed. Through answering these questions of evolved representation throughout close to a century amount of work, we contribute to scholarship that attempts to understand media influences on boyhood culture, which is considered in crisis due to overemphasised representations of powerful, strong male characters that hide their emotions (Brode, 2016; Wooden & Gillam, 2014).

Currently, attention to customer experience management is one of the most important management approaches in the business field. Focussing on improving customer experience and having a customer experience management strategy is one of the actions that service providers can take to improve their marketing performance by providing superior experiences to customers. The nature of customer experience is very important for the retail industry, especially for sportswear stores, because sports products are mostly experience-oriented and can be classified as a general experience. Despite the importance of consumption experience in consumer behaviour studies, the design of sports customer experiences has received less attention from researchers. Therefore, this chapter seeks to answer the question of what aspects of creating and developing customer experience in sportswear retail stores are. To answer this question, this chapter attempts to identify the areas of creating customer experiences in sports stores by using the views of sports marketing experts through qualitative research and using content analysis techniques. The findings indicate that sports stores try to provide the best experience for their customers by considering six aspects of human resources and employees, products, interior design, exterior space, technology and interaction and communication in their strategic marketing plans and investing in creating and developing these aspects. They create a distinct experience for customers and provide a basis for purchasing, satisfaction, loyalty and other positive marketing consequences for customers.

In recent years, there has been significant interest in adopting XR (extended reality) technologies such as VR (virtual reality) and AR (augmented reality), particularly in retail. However, extending activities through reality-mediation is still mostly believed to offer an inferior experience due to their shortcomings in usability, wearability, graphical fidelity, etc. This study aims to address the research gap by experimentally examining the acceptance of metaverse shopping.

This study conducts a 2 (VR: with vs. without) × 2 (AR: with vs. without) between-subjects laboratory experiment involving 157 participants in simulated daily shopping environments. This study builds a physical brick-and-mortar store at the campus and stocked it with approximately 600 products with accompanying product information and pricing. The XR devices and a 3D laser scanner were used in constructing the three XR shopping conditions.

Results indicate that XR can offer an experience comparable to, or even surpassing, traditional shopping in terms of its instrumental and hedonic aspects, regardless of a slightly reduced perception of usability. AR negatively affected perceived ease of use, while VR significantly increased perceived enjoyment. It is surprising that the lower perceived ease of use appeared to be disconnected from the attitude toward metaverse shopping.

This study provides important experimental evidence on the acceptance of XR shopping, and the finding that low perceived ease of use may not always be detrimental adds to the theory of technology adoption as a whole. Additionally, it provides an important reference point for future randomized controlled studies exploring the effects of technology on adoption.

Bengali sports history features very few women; some examples include enquiry into the representation of women in cricket stadiums as spectators (Naha, 2021) and the history of physical education in a women’s college (Bhattacharya, 2009). Likewise, young adult sports fiction in Bengali hardly engages with girls, with the notable exception of Moti Nandi’s Kalabati novels. This series of nine novels features the eponymous character as a high school student and a cricketer between 1984 and 2005. Belonging to a zamindar family, it is the possession of cultural capital post-abolishment of the zamindari system which allows Kalabati to play cricket. Situating the novel amidst India’s entry into neoliberalism, this chapter employs close reading to examine the ways adopted by the protagonist to manoeuvre new gender roles in conjunction with traditionally ascribed ones. Kalabati’s participation in a sport and a range of physical activities dominated by men goes against the societal codes prescribed for women. Despite that, masquerade and performativity allow Kalabati to assert her agency. Through alternately impersonating men and performing hyper-femininity, she effortlessly adjusts herself to different bodies, etiquettes and markers of gender identity. The fluidity in gender identities and emphasis on performance opens up the straitjacketed discussions around the former. This chapter argues that Kalabati’s exceptionality as a sportsperson is both an embodied and a genealogical trait.

Given the potential for authorial fashion to lead the way in the field of sustainable fashion and digital platforms to be a powerful tool for spreading sustainable messages, this study seeks to explore the emphasis given to sustainability in the digital communication of Portuguese and Spanish’s authorial fashion.

A thematic analysis of all the posts published on the feeds of the 63 designers who presented their collections at the Madrid and Lisbon fashion weeks in September/October 2022 (Spring/Summer 2023) or February/March 2023 (Fall/Winter 2023/2024) editions was carried out. The information was collected over a six-month period between the two fashion weeks. This study is based on the categories identified in the reflexive thematic analysis developed by Testa et al. (2020). After adapting the categories to our analysis, 14 emerging themes were identified as observation criteria.

A total of 4,699 posts were examined. The analysis reveals a general lack of interest in mentioning sustainability – a subject evident in just around 6% of the content – as well as a high emphasis on the visual aspect of the fashion product. Several similarities between the Portuguese and Spanish markets were observed.

This study is important since there are few cross-cultural studies in the field of fashion between the two countries, particularly on sustainable fashion. Furthermore, it establishes a structure that is easily replicable in various markets and geographical areas.

Patriotism is often described as the “love of country” that individuals display in the acclamation of their national community. Despite the prominence of this sentiment in various societies around the world, organizational research on patriotism is largely absent. This omission is surprising because entrepreneurs, human resource (HR) divisions, and firms frequently embrace both patriotism and patriotic organizational practices. These procedures include (among other interventions) national symbol embracing, HR practices targeted toward military members and first responders, the adulation of patriots and celebration of patriotic events, and patriotic-oriented corporate social responsibility (CSR). Here, the authors argue that research on HR management and organization studies will likely be further enhanced with a deeper understanding of the national obligation that can spur employee productivity and loyalty. In an attempt to jumpstart the collective understanding of this phenomenon, the authors explore the antecedents of patriotic organizational practices, namely, the effects of founder orientation, employee dispersion, and firm strategy. It is suggested that HR practices such as these lead to a patriotic organizational image, which in turn impacts investor, customer, and employee responses. Notably, the effect of a patriotic organizational image on firm-related outcomes is largely contingent on how it fits with the patriotic views of other stakeholders, such as investors, customers, and employees. After outlining this model, the authors then present a thought experiment of how this model may appear in action. The authors then discuss ways the field can move forward in studying patriotism in HR management and organizational contexts by outlining several future directions that span multiple levels (i.e., micro and macro). Taken together, in this chapter, the authors introduce a conversation of something quite prevalent and largely unheeded – the patriotic organization.

The folk or fairy tale is a complex combination of factors and functions and it is the analysis of these where nuances in the tales appear (Propp et al., 2015, p. 10). Propp was interested in plots, whereas this chapter aims to create an analysis of the visual perception of masculine identity, its relationship to the texts and to social and political expression in the early 1900s.

Challenges to masculine identity are found throughout fairy tale imagery of the 1900s. Artists of the time demonstrated their perceptions of societal change by creating illustrations that spoke to a changing audience. They began to depict versions of masculinity that played with, and celebrated a queer male character, amongst others. Although not always represented in a positive manner – Dulac's 1929 King in ‘Puss in Boots’, is a foolish fop – they were often portrayed with softness, flamboyancy and panache in opposition to the aggressive, hegemonic, or dominant persona who had until then been the staple of the fairy tale's visual masculine identity.

These new illustrations resisted the stereotypical depiction of masculine norms. They explored an identity that had not existed in the fairy tale until the changing rhetoric of social, political, and artistic movements was inculcated into them. The illustrations began to provide an opportunity to identify an atypical description of masculine norms in an unexpected domain. They challenged physical expectations and the hegemonic expectation of masculine identity, at a time where a predominant patriarchal hegemonic identity was the norm.

The retail landscape is dramatically changing due to a series of socio-economic and technological challenges, which can be faced through the adoption of smart technologies. Accordingly, a significant number of publications in this field have been produced, albeit with fragmented results. Therefore, this paper aims at both providing a clear and organised overview of the main smart technologies for physical retailing, in terms of application fields and expected impact, while identifying the major shortcomings and future research avenues.

The research conducts a systematic review of the literature concerning the assimilation of smart technologies within physical retail environments, resulting in the analysis of 103 papers published from 2005 to 2023. The review highlights (1) the main smart technologies employed in retail stores, (2) their application area and (3) the beneficiaries of their adoption. Accordingly, these three aspects are initially assessed independently and then examined in combination.

The analysis presents a comprehensive list of 16 key technologies (what) that can support a wide range of processes, spanning from back-end functions to front-end activities, also enabling the connection with online channels (where), catering several and different benefits (why) to both customers and retailers (who). Besides, the research points out many uncovered topics that could be addressed by the academic community.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the review is the first one in the literature offering a thorough and organised overview of the different available technologies for in-store application and their impact on physical retail processes.