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The purpose of this paper is to present a novel qualitative activity focus group (AFG) method for studying consumption practices. This participatory method, which is inspired by practice-theoretical thinking, combines focus group discussions with activities that represent the practices at the centre of the research.

The application of the AFG method is demonstrated with an empirical study of the transition to plant-based food consumption practices in Finland, involving four group sessions of 13 participants.

The findings from the empirical application of the AFG method illustrate that its key strength is the ability to foster fruitful and natural discussions on routine consumption practices that connect with discursive and practical dimensions and thus generate multidimensional data in resource-efficient ways.

The AFG method extends the methodological approaches in practice theory–oriented research, responding to the call for creative, real-life-reflecting methods that are able to grasp the discursive and embodied dimensions of practices. The method is proposed to be particularly suitable for research on mundane consumption practices.

The coffee industry has experienced two major trends: the development of connoisseur consumption of specialty coffee and the importance of sustainability. Despite the increasing concomitant relevance of both trends, literature on how sustainability has been interlacing with connoisseur consumption is rather limited. Therefore, this paper aims to analyse how connoisseur consumers (CC) integrate sustainability into their coffee consumption practices.

The paper adopts a qualitative netnographic approach through an interpretive cultural analysis of specialty coffee bloggers narratives, conceived as a specific sub-group of CC that tend to be particularly active on social media.

Through the lens of social practice theories, the study reveals that CC are likely to implement and perceive sustainability very differently from the dominant mass market as subject to the influence of their shared rituals, values, norms and symbolic meanings. Such findings are relevant under a managerial perspective as they also generate insights on how to foster environmentally friendly practices in coffee consumers as well as on how to create more sustainable marketing strategies.

The study contributes to the literature on coffee consumption behaviour and sustainability. First, by analysing actual behaviours rather than intended, the study offers an alternative approach to the dominant paradigm of linear decisions models in the study of sustainable consumption. Second, because CC possess a unique consumption style, different from the mainstream market, the analysis has led towards the identification of alternative sustainable consumption patterns and enablers.

This paper aims to present an analysis of the various dimensions of naturalness that shape the consumption practices of parents with young children.

The study builds on semi-structured interviews with 17 mothers and fathers focusing on parental decision-making in everyday consumption from pregnancy to the first years of the child’s life.

Naturalness is a tool allowing parents to navigate in a world of risks and part of an everyday consumption practice that constructs and maintains children as vulnerable and parents as responsible. Parents perceive naturalness as something with three dimensions: familiarity, purity and culture. These three dimensions lead to different parental practices around consumption.

The analysis contributes to the authors’ understanding of parenting, childhood, risk, safety and consumption by showing how and why parents of young children construct naturalness as a three-dimensional ideal in their consumption practices.

This paper aims to develop a theoretical framework for the conceptualization of customer experiential knowledge (CEK) by logically combining its different dimensions into one coherent explanatory concept. Drawing on the integration of the literature on customer experience, customer knowledge management and customer insights acquisition, supported by adequate empirical evidence, the framework provides a systematic, comprehensive and accurate understanding of CEK which, could contribute to the identification of relevant customer experience insights useful for customer knowledge management.

The analysis follows an inductive/deductive interpretative approach and it is based on a netnography of specialty coffee bloggers’ narratives in relation to their sustainability practices.

The paper identifies the following six types of CEK: normative, subcultural, epicurean, transcendental, subcultural and symbolic. Accordingly, CEK is defined as the knowledge tacitly possessed by customers in relation to how they live their consumption experiences according to a body of heterogeneous socio-cultural contextual factors (ethos, norms and symbols) and subjective influences (emotions, ingenuity, instincts and senses) deeply embedded into the narrative of a consumption experience.

While CEK has been largely observed and acknowledged, it has not been yet adequately addressed by existing research. The provision of a conceptual definition of CEK which emphasizes its different dimensions will be of use to both academics and practitioners to better identify and categorize the different manifestations of CEK when undertaking empirical observations or managerial decisions.

The study examines the responsibilisation of an ethnocentric consumer in commercial, meta-organisational discourses. In addition to nationalistic and patriotic discourses, the focus is on wider conceptualisations of consumer responsibility.

The paper uses critical discourse analysis as a methodological approach to conduct an empirical case study on the texts of two producer-driven labelling campaigns.

The campaign texts create possibilities for ethnocentric consumption with positioning, argumentative and classificatory discourses. Patriotic responsibilisation is emphasised, together with rationales to take action on environmental concerns.

The study highlights the responsibility of marketers over their corporate responsibility communication, suggesting that ethnocentric promotions may have the power to alter how consumers take action on various responsibility concerns.

The study surfaces the tensions that responsible consumption can entail for consumers. Indeed, nationalistic and patriotic discourses may alter our understanding of responsibility issues that may seem completely separate from the concepts of nationalism and patriotism.

The paper shows how different organisational texts are deployed to bring about the idea of ethnocentric consumption and how this relates to responsibility discourses, nationalism and patriotism.

This study aims to answer two research questions, namely, what kinds of mundane resistance practices emerge in the local food system and which spatial, material and social elements catalyse the resistance practices.

The study adopts a post-humanist practice approach and focusses on exploring the agentic capacity of socio-material elements to generate resistance practices. The data were generated through a multi-method approach of interviews, field observations and Facebook discussions collected between 2014 and 2017.

The empirical context is the rejäl konsumtion local food network in Finland. The analysis presents two types of resisting practices – resisting facelessness and resisting carelessness – which are connected to spatial, material and social elements.

The study focusses on one local food system, highlighting the socio-material structuring of resistance in this specific cultural setting.

The practical implications highlight that recognising the socio-material elements provides tools for better engagement of consumer actors with local food systems.

The study adds to the extant research by interweaving the consumer resistance literature and local food systems discussions with the neo-material approach. The findings present a more nuanced understanding of the ways in which consumer resistance is actualised in a non-recreational, mundane context of consumption. Consequently, the study offers new insights into the agentic socio-material actors structuring the local food system.

This paper presents a unique conceptual model that promotes behaviour change with the goal of creating a more sustainable conscious society. It aims to provide social marketers with insight on how to influence consumers' buying behaviour, which is often guided by their misperception of what is a good Quality of Life (QoL).

By means of a comprehensive, analytical review of relevant literature, this paper took a conceptual approach that included the thematic analysis of data sources such as accredited journal articles, books and other credible published materials.

Against the backdrop of South Africa's socio-economic conditions, this model emphasises the crucial role of individual's social and personal environment in shaping behaviour. The role of social marketers is to capitilise on consumers immediate environment to persuade them to consume more sustainably. It further gives way to the long-term, positive consequences of behaviour change on consumer's Quality of Life. The basic premise underlying the conceptual model is eudaimonia, the long-term subjective well-being of consumers, as a result conscientious consumption practices. The authors integrate Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory (1986) and Christie's Nested model of Quality of Life (2018) and presents the Social Cognitive Model of Quality of Life.

Such an integrative conceptual model can be used to justify policy implications, social marketing strategies and behavioural change for the individual consumer to promote their own subjective QoL while addressing and perhaps mediating the broader social and environmental concerns. However, the application of this concept within an emerging economy, remains to be a challenge, as the awareness around sustainable consumption is still in its infant stage.

With the rise of globalisation, consumers in emerging economies aspire to portray wealth through the acquisition of materialistic possessions. This is even though the majority live in poverty and cannot sustain a lifestyle that is driven by conspicuous consumption. As a result, social marketers have a significant responsibility to inRuence consumers buying behaviour towards sustainable consumption. This paper presents a model that guides social marketers on how they can encourage pro-environmental behaviour and create a more sustainably conscious society.

This paper aims to explore the market dynamics that led to a shift in Swedish consumers' alcohol preferences from schnapps to wine. Specifically, the study investigates how the Swedish state influenced consumers' alcohol habits and highlights the role of governance units in shaping consumer culture.

The study reconstructs the historical memory of the “Operation Vin”, a strategic marketing campaign implemented by Systembolaget from 1957 to 1985, to conceptualize the past and to uncover the structures and change dynamics of the Swedish alcohol market system. Following this approach, the research contrasts historical data from multiple sources with market-oriented ethnographical data and traces the trajectory of how the consumption of alcohol has changed as a consequence of the Swedish state’s initiatives.

The study offers two contributions to the literature in marketing and consumption history. Firstly, it uncovers the lines of actions (framing and settlement) involved in creating marketing systems and shaping consumer culture. Secondly, it explores how the state strategically leveraged its social skills to promote a specific type of alcohol consumption (wine) and to induce the Swedish consumer to cooperate in the refashioning of the alcohol field.

The authors aspire for this paper to offer valuable insights into how a state, as a governance entity, can shape consumer culture through a strategic blend of various regulatory measures, both gentle and forceful. The authors emphasize the pivotal role of social skills in fostering cooperation during the implementation of a new alcohol policy.

This paper provides valuable insights into the role of the Swedish state in shaping consumer culture and explores the strategic actions and marketing systems involved, contributing to marketing and consumption history literature.

The study aims to investigate the differences among urban and rural consumers in terms of their energy and water sustainable consumption behaviour levels and drivers and also empirically blueprint conceptual frameworks highlighting urban and rural consumer drivers to consume sustainably.

This research follows an exploratory design using a qualitative approach; 14 in-depth interviews followed by one focus group were conducted with urban consumers; on the other hand, 18 in-depth interviews followed by one focus group were conducted with rural consumers.

The findings show that no differences exist among urban and rural consumers in terms of both their sustainable consumption levels and their drivers to consume sustainably; such findings were encapsulated in the form of one conceptual framework pertinent to both urban and rural consumers; it has the following relevant factors: consumers’ attitudes toward conservation, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control, self-preference, public media influence, perceived economic value and perceived moral obligation to be relevant antecedents of conservation behaviour, which – in turn – drives sustainable purchase behaviours with the moderating effect of socio-demographic variables.

This paper contributes to extant literature as it provides evidence for the drivers of sustainable consumption behaviours of urban versus rural consumers in emerging countries; it also tentatively answers the question of whether the socio-demographic variables infer a difference in consumers’ sustainable consumption; finally, it studies sustainable consumption from a novel perspective with a focus on the relationship between its two pillars.

The purpose is to explore consumer acceptance of the doggy bag as an intervention to promote sustainable food consumption. In particular, it explores consumer attitudes towards taking home the leftover food from eating out at restaurants as a way of sustainable consumption.

A consumer survey to explore consumer attitudes, followed by an investigation of the media communications that promote the doggy bag as a tool to reduce food wastage.

Strategic communication was employed in an inclusive approach to increase the impact of the doggy bag on consumer behaviour. Consumers show a positive inclination towards using the doggy bag to take home the leftovers of their restaurant meals and reduce food wastage. Cultural biases can cause hurdles in the acceptance of the tool.

To the best of the author's knowledge, this is the first study to approach the behavioural analysis of leftover food takeout interventions studied from the consumer perspective. Furthermore, it is based on a novel approach of experimental methods at ready-to-eat food outlets for communicating with consumers.