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The COVID-19 bubonic plague, ravaging and reoccurring in waves globally, has impacted all aspects of human lives including the understanding and practice in the marketing discipline. The situation has pushed human behavior to its fringes with measures such as complete and partial lockdown of communities, cities and countries enforced to mitigate spread. Hence, consumers appeared to have subliminally reviewed their priorities in life as evident in the buying of essentials, neighbourhood shopping and the shift from offline to online buying behavior. Prior to the emergence of the viral disease, there has been a gradual change in consumer behavior, with respect to buying practices, and firm behavior with respect to distribution and supply chain management; largely induced by advances in technology and e-commerce. However, the COVID-19 pandemic appears to have raised the bar and accelerated behavioral change in consumers and marketing organizations. With the attendant economic instability, consumers and organizations are experiencing behavioral transformation in response to the perceived vanities of life, changes in market dynamics, market -competitiveness, and the larger economic indices. In addition, there has been observable decline in capacity utilization and employee retention in response to the forced drop in demand and corresponding supply. This book chapter, with the aid of an in-depth review of literature, discusses the effects of COVID-19 on consumer and firm behavior with emphasis on the consequences of the sustained economic disruption for marketing strategies and policies. This was hinged on the relativity of business down cycles to the present pandemic in providing a basis for future post-COVID-19 crisis studies in order to understand consumer sentiments to crisis and its implications in the marketing discipline.

Conflict is inevitable in any environment where people interact. Conflict, which is a natural consequence of social interaction, is also a fact of organizational life. The acceptance of the reality of conflict has replaced the efforts of organizations to eliminate conflict with living with it over time and making the conflict work in favor of the organization. Conflicts that arise in the service sector are usually caused by organizational culture such as organizational structure, organizational justice, and organizational tolerance. Cultural differences of those working in the organization also cause conflict. In addition, these conflicts commonly occur in the form of work–family conflict or family–work conflict of employees in the organization. The pandemic process has brought the conflict in the service sector to a different dimension. This process is seen as an opportunity that facilitates the rapid adaptation of enterprises in the service sector to digital transformation and technological developments. The increasing trends of digitalization in the service sector are seen as a solution method in conflict-affected communities. With this chapter, it was concluded that digitalization, which gained momentum with the work-from-home system that entered business life due to the COVID-19 pandemic will be an important part of the business culture after the pandemic.

This chapter intends to contribute to the debate on the determinants of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and their impact on performance measurement and communication systems. It aims at analyzing the relationship between the reasons why firms adopt CSR and the importance given to voluntary CSR disclosure.

Two main categories of CSR determinants have been identified: the external ones, coming from the environment outside the firm, and the internal determinants, which are linked to some specific characteristics of the enterprise and to the objectives it pursues.

The analyzed sample consists of 120 large Italian manufacturing and nonmanufacturing enterprises. The research hypotheses concerning the relationship between external and internal determinants of CSR and CSR disclosure were verified using an independent sample t-test, evaluating the equal variances of clusters using the Levene’s test.

Main results point out that in companies giving importance to CSR disclosure, the internal drivers are more relevant than the external ones in determining the attitude toward CSR. Among the internal determinants, drivers related to company and management values and ethics are quite relevant.

This study is subject to the limitations that generally apply to cross-sectional survey-based research.

Our research findings show that legitimacy theory represents the most relevant theory in explaining CSR disclosure practices of Italian large firms, as well as the operational implementation of stakeholder theory, such as stakeholder management. On the contrary, institutional theory only partially explains CSR disclosure, with respect to the pressures coming from financial markets.

Purpose – This study explores U.S. consumer attitudes toward organic foods in order to demonstrate that multiple and meaningful segments can be identified based on attitudes and beliefs rather than demographics and that a more targeted marketing strategy could likely create a better fit with consumer wants and needs.

Methodology – Q-methodology is employed, in part to demonstrate its usefulness for segmentation purposes.

Findings – Six meaningful segments of consumers are generated based on attitudes toward organic foods: Health Enthusiasts, Organic Idealists, Hoban's Hogwashers, Unengaged Shoppers, Bargain Shoppers, and Cynical/Distrustfuls. These groups vary in attitudes toward organic food, and despite conventional wisdom, exhibit a reasonable match between attitude and purchase behavior. Segments are also generated for viewpoints toward conventionally grown foods, revealing that consumers do not simply hold binary positions (pro-organic, anticonventional), but instead consider each food type on its respective merits. Positioning and media choice strategies are considered for each organic food segment.

Originality – This chapter distinguishes between different types of consumers of organic food by using Q-methodology, with the result being a rich, detailed description of the values and preferences of each group. With these descriptions, the organic food industry can better align its marketing efforts with the priorities of individual consumer groups, rather than their simplistic demographics as are commonly utilized. The chapter also offers a unique perspective on the attitude–behavior gap, revealing that when the attitude is understood in greater detail, the gap appears to disappear.

This chapter deals with five key themes: the objectives for companies and the attitudes and buying behaviour of consumers as concerns sustainable development, the firm’s strategies for reducing energy costs and waste, the challenges of bringing all actors in the supply chain into line, the firm’s supply policy in response to consumer demand and the technical, organisational and communication challenges surrounding the environmental impact of products. It then considers at the role of governments and NGOs in companies’ approaches towards sustainable development strategies before finally outlining the future prospects for these strategies.

Relationship marketing is widely accepted as the most successful way to build customer loyalty and competitive advantage in a mature, competitive market. The study investigates customer loyalty programmes within the context of service quality in Swedish hotels using an online questionnaire survey. Five service quality factors were identified: technical, functional, environmental, technological convenience and technological product dimensions, which supports the Northern European service quality model with the addition of technological dimensions. Five loyalty programme factors were also established and factor scores were mainly undifferentiated on the basis of socio-demographic and behavioural variables. The implications of the results are discussed and recommendations for further research are made.

It is evident that while new technologies are shifting the current dynamics of the marketplace, technological innovations and Industry 4.0 are influencing the marketing activities along with our perceptions and expectations. The effects of globalization, digitalization, and Internet on marketing activities and consumers are indisputable. Almost every person, society, organization, and even the government has experienced some sense of transformation as a result of the increased connectivity and interaction. Discussion of the current concepts, theories, the way they are used in understanding the technology adoption behavior, and their role in the transformation of the consumers in the digital age is necessary in order to understand the aforementioned changes happening in the marketplace. It is also essential to focus on the transformation of marketing applications caused by Industry 4.0 in order to better understand the consumer expectations, reactions, and behavior. Hence, this study aims to investigate how Industry 4.0 affected and transformed marketing and consumer behavior, by examining the recent technological innovations. In this chapter, the basic concepts related to technology and innovation adoption are explained, and the relationship between marketing and Industry 4.0 is discussed. After reviewing the recent technological innovations and their relation to consumer behavior, a general discussion is given.

The purpose of this chapter is to explore the differences in consumers’ willingness to pay for different types of design attributes due to different levels of specific anticipatory emotions evoked by them. The research aims to show how firms can benefit by leveraging the findings that different types of design attributes – that is, functionality, aesthetics, and environmental sustainability – affect profit margin per unit differently. Further, the chapter claims that design is a core competency that can pay dividends in terms of profit margins for firms. It is important for firms to develop expertise in understanding and leveraging relationships between the types of design attributes, specific emotions, and consumers’ willingness to pay.

The chapter uses the product categories of cell phones and laptop computers in the three experiments to test the hypothesized relationships between design attributes (functionality, aesthetics, and environmental sustainability), specific emotions, and willingness to pay.

The research finds that different attributes of design – functionality, aesthetics, and sustainability – evoke different types of emotions and different levels of willingness to pay.

The data were primarily collected via experiments in a behavioral laboratory.

Firms can leverage different attributes of design to position and price products according to emotional requirements of the target customer segment to match their willingness to pay and maximize profit margin per unit.

The research specifically measures willingness to pay in joint presentation – independent evaluation scenarios to assess differences in how functionality, aesthetics, and sustainability impact willingness to pay.

Online retailing is continuing to grow at a time with many fashion brands are closing retail stores. Social media is now an essential component within the purchase journey of a fashion consumer. As social media networks continue to develop transactional capabilities, this has giving rise to the expansion of social shopping. Fashion brands need to consider how best to optimise social shopping opportunities as an extension of the retail shopping experience. Reviewing developments within retailing, a conceptual model of social shopping is proposed, which places mobile technologies as central to the social shopping experience both on social media and in store.

People decide what is good or bad, or what they should or should not do, based on the values they cherish. Someone's values create the feeling that something is important for him or her, and then motivate him or her to take action. Therefore, personal values are important psychological aspects that serve as predictors of many types of human behaviour. The use of values to evaluate, to predict or to assess behavioural choices and their outcomes has received increasing attention in psychology in recent years. An important psychological insight is that similarities between personal values and values provided by the context (e.g., not only values cherished by the people who are close to us but also values embedded in the brands that are relevant for us or in the communication messages we are confronted with) have an impact on subjective well-being. This psychological insight makes values relevant for other domains as well. This chapter explores the use of values in communication, and introduces mechanisms through which values can be used to stimulate communication effectiveness.