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The purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual framework that provides insights into major environmental and organizational forces underlying greater levels of organizational responsiveness to the environmental sustainability imperative by a growing number of firms, worldwide.

The paper is conceptual in its focus, and the proposed framework builds on extant literature from multiple literature streams.

Societal progress toward environmental sustainability is a shared responsibility of consumers, corporations, and the government at various levels. A potential avenue for societal progress toward environmental sustainability is fostering a macroenvironment that is conducive to the elimination of consumption certain products, reduction in consumption certain other products, and redirection of consumption of still other products from ecologically more harmful to ecologically less harmful substitute products (and relatedly, demand elimination, demand reduction, and demand redirection).

An implication for corporate sustainability responsibility is that firms while planning and formulating strategies for increasing their market footprint must also concurrently plan and formulate strategies for decreasing their environmental footprint. An implication for government sustainability responsibility is that even under conditions of high levels of commitment by a large and growing number of firms and consumers to engage in environmentally sustainable behaviors, in the absence of supporting infrastructure for engaging in such behavior, they may find it necessary to engage in environmentally unsustainable behaviors.

Issues relating to environmental sustainability have been the focus of a large body of recent research in a number of academic disciplines including marketing. A cursory examination of numerous articles published in scholarly journals on issues pertaining to environmental sustainability, and in the business press pertaining to the myriad environmental sustainability initiatives of firms worldwide is indicative of its growing importance.

Shopper marketing describes the planning and execution of all marketing activities that influence a shopper along – and beyond – the path-to-purchase, from shopping trigger to purchase, consumption, repurchase, and recommendation stages. Shopper marketing practices at manufacturers and retailers are growing at a tremendous pace and a rising portion of marketing budgets are now devoted to shopper marketing. The first phase of shopper marketing research and practice, Shopper Marketing 1.0, addressed interesting issues, primarily relating to in-store marketing. In the next phase, Shopper Marketing 2.0, will significantly extend to out-of-store marketing, including online and mobile marketing, resulting in an integrated practice. In this new environment, to formulate and execute effective shopper marketing strategies, managers need to better understand the complete picture of how online, offline, mobile and in-store marketing influence shoppers in the path-to-purchase-and-beyond cycle. In this chapter, we present the evolution of shopper marketing, summarize key learnings, outline important issues, and discuss the opportunities and challenges of Shopper Marketing 2.0.

Many consumer choice situations are characterized by the simultaneous demand for multiple alternatives that are imperfect substitutes for one another. A simple and parsimonious multiple discrete-continuous extreme value (MDCEV) econometric approach to handle such multiple discreteness was formulated by Bhat (2005) within the broader Kuhn–Tucker (KT) multiple discrete-continuous economic consumer demand model of Wales and Woodland (1983). In this chapter, the focus is on presenting the basic MDCEV model structure, discussing its estimation and use in prediction, formulating extensions of the basic MDCEV structure, and presenting applications of the model. The paper examines several issues associated with the MDCEV model and other extant KT multiple discrete-continuous models. Specifically, the paper discusses the utility function form that enables clarity in the role of each parameter in the utility specification, presents identification considerations associated with both the utility functional form as well as the stochastic nature of the utility specification, extends the MDCEV model to the case of price variation across goods and to general error covariance structures, discusses the relationship between earlier KT-based multiple discrete-continuous models, and illustrates the many technical nuances and identification considerations of the multiple discrete-continuous model structure. Finally, we discuss the many applications of MDCEV model and its extensions in various fields.

Organizations are increasingly confronted with legitimacy threats related to the perceived social costs of their business activities. Despite a significant amount of research on the responses of individual organizations, surprisingly limited attention has been paid to the collective activities firms may engage to address such issues. In this paper, we use institutional theory as a lens for an exploratory case study of Issue-Based Industry Collective (IBIC) action in the alcohol industry. Our findings identify a new organizational form, the IBIC and inspire new research avenues at the intersection of business collective action, social issues, and institutional theory.

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.