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This study aims to investigate whether the antecedents of co-creation influence braggart word-of-mouth (WoM) in a participative leisure context, theorising the concept of co-created food well-being and highlighting implications for interactive experience co-design.

A sequential mixed-method approach was used to test a theoretical model; 25 in-depth interviews with cooking class participants were conducted, followed by a post-experience survey (n = 575).

Qualitative results suggest braggart WoM is rooted in active consumer participation in co-designing leisure experiences. The structural model confirms that participation in value co-creating activities (i.e. co-design, customer-to-customer (C2C) interaction), alongside perceived support from service providers, increases consumer perceptions of co-creation and stimulates braggart WoM. Degree of co-creation and support from peers mediate some relationships.

Limited by cross-sectional data from one experiential consumption format, the results nevertheless demonstrate the role of active participation in co-design and C2C interactions during value co-creation. This implies that co-created and co-designed leisure experiences can intensify post-consumption behaviours and potentially enhance food well-being.

The results highlight that integrating customer participation into service design, while also developing opportunities for peer support on-site, can stimulate braggart WoM.

Extends burgeoning literature on co-creation and co-design in leisure services. By encouraging active customer participation while providing support and facilitating C2C interactions, service providers can enhance value co-creation, influencing customer experiences and food well-being. Accordingly, the concept of co-created food well-being is introduced.

Although interest in sustainability within the fashion apparel industry has increased over the last decade, ethical fashion remains a minority trend due to low consumer awareness and consumption behaviour. The aim of the paper is to explore empirically the relationships between general consumer support for ethical fashion, buying intention and willingness to pay, focussing on the effect that consumer concern and knowledge and beliefs have on these variables.

Data were collected from 450 general consumers in Spain, who are not specifically dedicated buyers of fashion apparel goods. Responses were collected with a structured questionnaire that included multi-item scales to measure all the variables of the causal model. After corroborating the reliability and validity of the measurement scales with confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), 11 research hypotheses were explored using a structural equation modelling (SEM) approach.

The findings demonstrate that whilst beliefs are not predictors of consumer support for either social or environmental issues, concern and knowledge are antecedents of consumer social and environmental support, which determine general support for ethical fashion, intention to buy and willingness to pay. Consumer social support has a slightly higher impact on consumer support for ethical fashion, intention to buy and willingness to pay than environmental support.

The purpose of the paper is to contribute to the literature by empirically comparing general consumer perceptions, attitudes and behaviours towards the social and environmental dimensions of ethical fashion. In doing so, the authors aim at shedding light on the complex concept of ethical fashion and how general consumers understand it. The findings suggest that promoting educational marketing especially focussed on environmental issues is necessary to raise consumer awareness, knowledge and ethical consumption.

Crises threaten the operations of small businesses and endanger their survival; however, when the crisis is not attributable to the firm, consumers may rally around the business. This study aims to examine how attitudes toward helping others can create support for small businesses, which in turn can direct consumers to help businesses with increased financial support. It is hoped that this paper will inform how consumers will help firms pivot during crises.

A conceptual model was proposed which linked support for helping others to increased willingness to tip/amount tipped. The model was tested using structural equation modeling from two surveys given to customers of two small businesses, a coffee shop and an independent movie theater, respectively.

During a crisis, support for helping others has a positive impact on feelings of support for small businesses. Consumers direct their support to small businesses that they are interested in seeing survive and continue operations. They either tip more or tip when they otherwise would not have tipped.

Firms that pivot their operations because of a crisis imposed on them can still generate revenues. Consumers who have a self-interest in the continuing operations of the firm want to support it, and by pivoting their business model, the firm gives consumers the opportunity to give the firm and its employees more than they would have in the form of tips.

Prior work in crisis management has focused primarily on how firms recover and respond to a crisis of their doing. Overwhelmingly, consumers have been shown to punish firms during times of crisis. However, for a crisis that is imposed on the firm, consumers may rally behind the firm and respond by supporting it more than they are required to.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a process model for the role transformation of vulnerable consumers through support services.

The study is based on four years of participant observation at a community-based support service and in-depth interviews with the consumers. Visual ethnography was used to document the process of the consumers' role transformation through service exchanges.

The main outcome of this study is a consumer transformation model, describing consumers' role transformation processes, from recipients to generic actors. The model demonstrates that vulnerable consumers will transform from recipients to quasi-actors before becoming generic actors.

Vulnerable consumers' participation in value cocreation can be promoted by providing social support according to their dynamic roles. By enabling consumers to participate in value cocreation, social support provision can become sustainable and inclusive, especially in rural areas affected by aging and depopulation. Transforming recipients into generic actors should be a critical aim of service provision in the global challenge of aging societies.

Beyond identifying service factors, the research findings describe the mechanism of consumers' role transformation process as a service mechanics study. Furthermore, this study contributes to transformative service research by applying social exchange theory and broadening service-dominant logic by describing the process of consumer growth for individual and community well-being.

Online offerings for transformative services create value for consumers, although little research examines the process through which these services deliver this value. The purpose of this paper is to develop a comprehensive framework to capture the complexity of the co-creation of transformative value experienced by the consumers of online transformative services.

This paper uses a netnography approach to examine longitudinal data from an online weight management program. In total, this research examines 15,304 posts from 3,149 users, including eight staff users.

Consumers integrate a range of social support resources, from informational support to esteem support, which provide a range of benefits such as new ideas and self-efficacy that underpin the different types of value such as epistemic and personal value. The degree of co-created value differs across the consumption experience but culminates over time into transformative value.

The proposed framework may be useful beyond the weight management and online contexts; however, further work is required in a range of behavioral contexts and other modes of service delivery.

By understanding the resources consumers integrate and value, co-created services can develop appropriate value propositions to assist in improving consumers’ well-being.

This research provides a comprehensive framework of the transformative value co-creation process, extending on existing frameworks which examine either the process, value co-creation or the types of value co-created.

The employment of mental health consumers as peer support workers (PSWs) to provide support to other consumers is gaining momentum around the world. The purpose of this paper is to explore the tensions and dilemmas for a social worker in developing a peer support programme at an inpatient psychiatric service in Australia. The author draws on her experience of embedding a peer support programme providing an insight into the difficulties experienced and strategies used which supported the embedding of PSWs. The discipline of social work has complimentary values to the philosophy of peer support as well as the skills to manage the broad range of activities and tasks associated with developing a new programme. Due to the profession’s underlying knowledges and values social work is able to act as a bridge between mental health professionals such as doctors and nurses and PSWs giving social workers the ability to “interpret” the divergent languages, values, beliefs and practices.

A retrospective analysis of peer support programme implementation using social work values as a point of reference.

The author draws on her experience of embedding a peer support programme providing an insight into the difficulties experienced and strategies used which supported the embedding of PSWs. Due to the profession’s underlying knowledges and values social work is able to act as a bridge between mental health professionals such as doctors and nurses and PSWs giving social workers the ability to “interpret” the divergent languages, values, beliefs and practices.

This paper arose out of a conference presentation and author’s Master’s Dissertation, for which she received honours marks. During the period she was implementing the peer support programme, there was a dearth of local (Australian) literature about peer support programme development; this paper is a response to that need as the author would have greatly appreciated some local wisdom about embedding peer support programmes.

The authors believe this is a unique approach to a journal paper; certainly the authors have not discovered anything of its ilk previously. There is a lot of material available now about peer support, its benefits and challenges, and many are written by social work, psychology, psychiatric and nursing academics but without overt statement of the professional values which inform their practice.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of social support on young adults with disabilities (YAWDs) independent mobility behavior with the aim of understanding how better to support this vulnerable consumer segment in their transition into the workforce.

A survey was conducted which examined how social support (high and low) influenced YAWD’s path to independent mobility behavior. The data were analyzed using partial least squares-SEM.

It was identified that different factors were more effective at influencing independent mobility behavior for high and low socially supported YAWDs. For high social support individuals, anticipated positive emotions and perceived behavioral control were found to drive attitudes to independent mobility with perceived behavioral control significantly stronger for this group than the low socially supported group. For the low socially supported group, all factors were found to drive attitudes which then drove individual behavior. One entire path (risk aversion to anticipated negative emotions to attitude to behavior) was found to be stronger for low supported individuals compared to high.

This study is unique in that it is the first to identify the theoretical constructs that drive vulnerable consumer’s independence behavior and understand how these factors can be influenced to increase independence. It is also the first to identify that different factors influence independent behavior for vulnerable consumers with high and low social support with anticipated negative emotions important for consumers with low social support and perceived behavioral control important for those with high social support.

Peer support workers are becoming more involved in mental health services in Australia. Peer support workers have had to overcome challenges and dilemmas whilst embedding their role within mental health settings. This includes coping with scrutiny from fellow colleagues, supporting consumers and managing their own mental health. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper will explore the author’s perspective and experience of working as a peer support worker in a psychiatric hospital and how the skills, knowledge and values she has developed during her recovery from mental illness have been essential in undertaking the daily activities with consumers and clinicians, overcoming the challenges and dilemmas, and managing her own wellness.

The paper provides insight into the experience of a peer support worker at a psychiatric hospital for adults.

The author’s personal experience of being a peer support worker in a mental health facility.

The use of supportive digital technology – the provision of supportive services and self-management health tools using digital platforms – by marketers is increasing alongside research interest in the topic. However, little is known about the motivations to use these tools and which tool features provide different forms of social support (informational, emotional, instrumental, network or esteem). The purpose of this paper is thus to explore consumer perceptions of supportive healthcare self-management and preferences for different levels of interactive features as social support in a health services context.

A qualitative approach involving 30 semi-structured interviews with consumers interested in two common preventative health services that use supportive digital tools (SDTs) (skin-cancer checks and sexually transmitted infection checks) was undertaken. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the verbatim transcripts.

This research identified there is a lack of motivation to initiate the search for SDTs; consumers are motivated by a desire to control and monitor health concerns and avoid overuse of the health system. The findings showed a preference for social support to go beyond informational support, with a need for interactivity that personalised support in a proactive manner.

SDTs are positively perceived by consumers as part of health services. The motivation to use these tools is complex, and the social support needed is multifaceted and preferably interactive.

This research assists service marketers to better design informational and instrumental support for preventative self-managed healthcare services.

This paper extends knowledge about the motivation and social support required from SDTs in a preventative health service context.

The understanding of the motives for consumers’ support of business underdogs is generally limited. The purpose of this paper is to help address this important research topic by conceptualizing underdog affection as a theoretical construct capturing the emotional attachment held by some consumers toward underdog business entities and advances two perspectives (self- and other-oriented) to unravel its motivational underpinnings.

To test the conceptual model, a survey study was conducted involving 365 respondents drawn from an electronic alumni association list from a medium-sized Midwestern university in the USA. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analyses were used to validate the scales, and the structural equations modeling method was used to test the hypothesized effects.

The data support most of the hypotheses (eight out of nine). Under the self-oriented perspective, commerce underdog affection is positively influenced by underdog orientation, need for uniqueness, nostalgia proneness, and hope, and is negatively impacted by their materialism level. Only hope did not impact consumer underdog affection. Under the other-oriented perspective, balance maintenance, top dog antipathy, and empathic concern positively influence underdog affection. The other-oriented factors, especially top dog antipathy and balance maintenance, show stronger effects on commerce underdog affection than self-oriented factors.

The sample was geographically restrictive in the sense that it measured only one group of respondents in the USA. The conceptual model is limited in terms of its coverage of the consequences of underdog affection. While discriminant validity is established in the scale development phase of the study, relatively close relationships do exist among some of these theoretical constructs.

Given the significant evidence linking consumers’ underdog affection to underdog support in commerce, small locally owned businesses could use underdog positioning advertising to differentiate themselves against national retailers. Due to their tendency to display higher underdog affection in commerce, people with higher levels of balance maintenance, top dog antipathy, underdog orientation, emphatic concern, and nostalgia proneness, and lower levels of materialism can be segmented for marketing purposes.

This research indicates that there are ways in which small business entities and non-profits alike can operate in a business setting that is increasingly more competitive and challenging for underdog entities.

This study integrates the various underdog studies across contexts to examine motives to underdog affection, a construct not yet operationalized in business studies. In addition, hypotheses linking eight specific antecedents to commerce underdog affection, via two theoretical perspectives, are empirically examined to assess relative as well as absolute effects.