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The purpose of this research is to conduct a literature review on the evolution, antecedents, and outcomes of luxury consumption (LC). To accomplish our goal, we used a combination of bibliometrics and systematic approaches to review 165 articles published between 1998 and 2019. The investigation revealed that the evolution of LC is mostly driven by consumer motivation and is influenced by cultural and psychological variables. Furthermore, we explored the aforementioned antecedents of LC along four major axes. Antecedents related to (1) individual characteristics, (2) brand components, (3) cultural and social values, and (4) organizational strategies. Furthermore, based on the outcomes of LC, we found two categories (individual traits and social values). The chapter concludes by proposing a broader research agenda for the future.

Making a classroom a space that can become a place of lively discussion and interaction is a goal of many instructors, but it can be challenging to assess the extent to which classroom engagement is resulting in meaningful participation. The use of an assessment tool called classroom mapping provides a way to trace and analyze students’ interaction, performance, and involvement in a class. It maps discussions and shows feedback on what is going on; including who is talking, for how long, what subjects and instructional strategies engage which students, and what kinds of connections are being made with the students and the instructors. This chapter considers the broader implications of using technology to elevate classroom mapping from formative assessment to potential learning analytic, with particular attention to the practical, pedagogical and ethical implications of recording and mapping how students engage in their classes.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to better understand the changing contours of corporate responsibility. This is accomplished by determining what kind of American is interested in socially responsible investing (SRI).

Methodology/Approach – Analyzing nationally representative survey data, I explore what factors are associated with self-proclaimed interest in SRI.

Findings – I find that interest in SRI is generally not patterned along class or religious lines. Instead, the power to “do good” is more evenly distributed across American society.

Research limitations – Future surveys should measure behavioral involvement in SRI and provide better religious affiliation measures.

Social implications – Higher levels of SRI involvement should bolster the SRI industry's ability to pressure corporate America to behave more ethically.

Originality/Value – This is the first analysis of nationally representative data on interest in SRI.

Using the example of LEGO Friends, we investigate the discourses that develop when second-order consumers attribute moral weight to the production and marketing of toys perceived to sharpen and enforce gender norms.

We analyze reactions to LEGO Friends through a discourse analysis of online data collected from English-language blogs and news sites. The data is coded iteratively within the two primary categories of gender and the market.

We argue that children’s toys have reemerged as a moral battlefield where consumers stake out positions on the feminization and sexualization of young girls, forcing companies to take strong ideological stances while competing for market share. We show that in the debate over LEGO Friends, consumers’ discursive constructions of moral play were embedded in a heteronormative middle-class ideal that discourages expressions of stereotypical femininity.

Our data is limited to a number of online forums blogs and web sites. We do not claim to have exhaustively catalogued the reactions to LEGO Friends, but merely to have explored discursive positions staked by consumers in the unfolding debate.

This research shows that companies can benefit from addressing second-order consumers’ negotiations of brand meanings in their marketing research and campaigns, and thus avoid becoming the next target of a moral panic.

Our paper addresses brand meaning negotiations by second-order consumers, in this case buyers of children’s toys.

Purpose – Little attention has been directed to investigating abandonment which refers to the deliberate choice of giving up something previously consumed. In this chapter, we look into meanings that motivate the abandonment of a product category and also the meanings abandonment gives rise to.

Design/methodology/approach – The research used a qualitative methodology to collect and analyze data obtained from in-depth interviews with 16 Brazilian consumers who gave up automobile ownership. This category was chosen due to its intense symbolic dimension.

Findings – The interviews suggest that, rather than being a discrete event, an action, or decision that is circumscribed by a given moment, abandonment is in fact a process. The analysis also outlines three types of abandonment: contingent, positional, and ideological. Contingent abandonment occurs when the individual, despite sharing the meanings with other consumers of the category, is forced to abandon consumption. Positional abandonment is driven mainly by the rejection of symbolic associations that consumption provides. Finally, ideological abandonment presents a collective perspective where the individual believes that society as a whole should abandon or reassess that consumption.

Practical implications (if applicable) – Results offer potential insights, for both governments and nongovernmental organizations involved in de-marketing efforts aimed at inappropriate consumption and companies interested in reversing the shrinking of their markets.

Originality/value – The present research broadens our knowledge of abandonment and allows us to situate it among other kinds of anticonsumption behaviors.