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Marketing products as guilt-free is not new, especially in the food industry, but what is new is the scope of ethical choice on offer and the variety and complexity of guilt-free narratives sold as part of the consumption package. The purpose of this paper is to present – and test – an innovative framework with which to analyse the key strategies in the creation of guilt-free narratives within the food industry and examine how consumer habits, motivations and attitudes are afforded by these narratives. The trend towards interpassivity, in which a consumer “outsources” moral responsibility to manufacturers, suppliers or retailers, is critically examined.

Data collection consisted of a non-probability quota sample of UK residents, administered online. There were three main areas of this study: consumers’ attitudes towards guilt-free products and marketing, consumers’ consumption habits and conscious-motivating factors and insights in unconscious-motivating factors. The questionnaire was designed to provide both qualitative and quantitative insights. It consisted of a variety of open-ended questions, as well as sets of given choices regarding habits and motivations, where the options were designed to encompass as many potential responses as necessary. The survey was shaped using a mini-focus group.

The paper demonstrates that consumers are in general willing to pay more for a guilt-free product but not for the reasons normally presented within the marketing literature. The paper shows that while self-accountability and anticipatory guilt are reasons for the effectiveness of guilt-free marketing, they are only minor factors. The paper shows that other motivating factors are more important as many participants buy products they do not entirely trust or have a particular preference for. One motive relates to interpassivity, that is, that guilt and guilt-alleviating actions can be transferred or delegated to the product itself.

The concept of interpassivity and the idea of transference of actions or emotions to products has potential for new marketing frameworks. There are many different coping mechanisms for guilt or shame, and these could all be packaged into products to arouse a preference with the consumer. The entire area of guilt-free marketing is under-researched but because of the continued growth in consumer guilt-mitigation strategies, it is likely to see a lot of research activity in the near future. The main limitation is the limited statistical analysis afforded by the non-probability nature of the sample.

The paper has developed a clearer definition of what constitutes a guilt-free product, that is, a guilt-free product is created when a regular product has any one or more of the three types of guilt (anticipatory, reactive and existential) packaged into it. Using this definition, the paper examined why guilt-free marketing has been effective, identifying that though consumers are willing to pay more for a guilt-free product, self-accountability and anticipatory guilt are only part of the explanation, with guilt and guilt-alleviating actions being transferred or delegated to the product itself a significant factor.

The paper has impacts for producers and consumers wishing to highlight the social good of a product. The study shows that consumers are sophisticated enough to examine social impact but often express a desire to delegate action to firms. Firms can more clearly frame their activity and contrast their action to the misleading marketing claims of rivals.

This paper is the first detailed analysis of guilt-free foods of its type. It seeks to create clearer definitions and frameworks with which to examine marketing practices and discourses of guilt in food consumption and marketing. The paper findings suggest that a relatively novel approach to consumption – interpassivity – is a useful explanation for otherwise puzzling consumer behaviour in a newly emerging area of guilt-free food marketing.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically establish the boundary conditions of the guilt mitigation process that consumers resort to in justifying consumption under contextual ambiguity, with respect to consumers' discomfit with ambiguity. While well observed, the process of guilt mitigation is less articulated with respect to contextually relevant consumers’ personality trait(s) (such as, discomfort with ambiguity) that may affect decision-making idiosyncratically. This gap is addressed herewith.

Three experiments were conducted across two studies to establish the boundary conditions of guilt mitigation in the specific context of transactions involving trade-ins. In doing so, consumers' direct price imputation or, indirectly, their relative preference for financially equivalent, but structurally distinct, price structures was measured. Guilt was induced among consumers by directly manipulating consumers' degree of attachment with their old product (the trade-in).

Results indicate that consumers resort to guilt mitigation in justifying consumption more extensively when they harbor higher levels of discomfort with ambiguity, not otherwise – the moderating effects of consumers' discomfort with ambiguity or the boundary condition under study.

Hypothetical buying scenarios, albeit constructed based on field information and subsequently tested for realism, were used to conduct the experiments, versus field experiments using real consumers. Further, the respondent pool comprised of Indian nationals only. These remain the primary limitations of this research.

The findings indicate that managers may be able to construe deals in a manner that promotes self-segmentation by consumers, especially when consumers harbor greater discomfort with ambiguity. This, in turn, implies reduction in consumer heterogeneity and a concomitant increase in marketing efficiency.

By considering consumers' discomfort with ambiguity in this research, the efficacy of the guilt mitigation process was established with respect to a contextually relevant individual difference factor. While the fundamentally constructive nature of guilt mitigation necessitates such considerations, this research gap, thus addressed, remained unaddressed hitherto.

In the highly gendered academic sector, womens’ high participation rates have not translated into equal career progression with men. Existing literature suggests that early career publication success is a good indicator of long-term publication success. This research is intended to provide a better understanding of whether the notions of success espoused by neo-liberal universities align with the subjective measures of what constitutes academic success for women ECRs (early career researchers).

The study examines the perceptions of nine successful women ECRs at an Australian university. It uses collaborative autoethnography with thematic analysis of participants’ self-reflective narratives on being a successful ECR.

Five themes were identified. One focussed on objective academic success, which included publications, grants and citations. The other four themes – living a balanced life, making a difference, labour of love and freedom and flexibility – offered more subjective views of success. These included: research making a contribution to society, undertaking research they are passionate about, having autonomy in their role and achieving work-life balance.

The findings demonstrate that women define success in broader terms than neo-liberal universities, and future studies should consider these divergent definitions. Universities committed to equality should understand differences in how women may approach career progress and incorporate this into support processes and in alignment of individual and university goals.

This research offers unique insights into the experience of post-doctoral employment for women in the academic environment and the factors influencing their success in this early career phase.

Successful marketing communication campaigns require a thorough assessment of the public's current perceptions and attitudes toward the topic of the campaign. Such insights are most likely attained if a range of research methods are employed. However, in the area of pro-environmental campaigns, there has been an over-reliance on quantitative surveys. To illustrate the benefits of complementary, qualitative approaches, this paper reports a qualitative investigation of perceptions of climate change among young South Koreans.

The study employed a variant of the Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique (ZMET), a hybrid protocol which combines photo elicitation with metaphor analysis of subsequent in-depth individual interviews. Unlike survey research, ZMET uncovers the emotional, interpretive and sensory mental structures which, along with factual knowledge, make up the public mindset about climate change.

The analysis revealed a multifaceted mental model of climate change, whereby factual, interpretive and emotional knowledge is organized around themes of loss, human greed, affective distress and iconic representations of tragic endings. The causal dynamics of climate change are construed along a continuum of psychological distance, with antecedents placed in proximity and effects assigned to distant temporal, geographical and psychological spaces.

Four message strategies for climate change mitigation campaigns are identified based on the findings.

The study makes a methodological argument for supplementing survey research with image-based qualitative investigations in the formative stages of pro-environmental campaigns. More specifically, the article demonstrates the applicability of ZMET to social marketing communication. Apart from the methodological implications, this appears to be the first in-depth qualitative investigation of public perceptions of climate change in East Asia, a populous and fast developing region which has become a major contributor to the world’s carbon emissions, and an important player in the global effort toward mitigation.

Very limited research exists examining envy from the viewpoint of an envied consumer, rather than an envier. This paper aims to address this gap by examining whether and how the experience of being envied actually affects consumers.

This paper presents three experiments. Study 1 investigates the ambivalent experience of being envied. Study 2 examines the effect of being envied in consumption contexts on consumer satisfaction, analyzing the combined ambivalent effects of positive and negative feelings. It also investigates the moderating role played by consumer coping responses to enviers (mitigation vs exacerbation). Finally, Study 3 applies the hypothesized model in a specific context (i.e. a material possession context), focusing on adult consumers.

Results show that negative (e.g. guilt and anxiety) and positive (e.g. sense of well-being and prestige) feelings for being envied depend on the type of relationship between the envier and the envied, and the type of desired object, and consumer satisfaction is driven by the combined ambivalent effects of positive and negative feelings, where coping responses by envied consumers moderate the effects of such feelings on satisfaction.

This paper makes three main contributions: it extends prior research by highlighting the role of personal relationship factors and the type of object of desire in the experience of being envied; demonstrates that both positive and negative feelings of being envied affect consumer satisfaction; and shows conditions regulating the influence of positive and negative feelings on satisfaction, demonstrating that mitigation strategies decrease the effects of negative feelings on satisfaction, whereas exacerbation strategies failed to regulate the effects of positive feelings.

Describes research into managers′ experiences of significant organizational change attempts. The research project was aimed at developing frameworks which: describe, illuminate and enable a better understanding of managers′ journeys through organizational change; serve as a template for bringing together the very diverse and fragmented literature relating to individuals experiencing change; highlight issues and pointers for the design and facilitation of effective organizational change initiatives. The first part describes the context, spirit, intentions, sample and methodology of the research. Also, reviews a broad range of literature which can inform our understanding of individuals in change. Propounds the need to open up the “real world” of organizational change, as perceived and experienced by managers, rather than any “ideal” view of how that world is desired or supposed to be. Presents and discusses research findings on the sensed and initiating “primary” triggers for change‐that is, the formal and communicated organizational change objectives; and the perceived and felt “secondary” triggers for change‐that is, the issues raised by, and the implications of, the organizational changes for individual managers. The second part presents a framework depicting the phases and components of managers′ journeys through organizational change. On the framework, the experience of managers can be located, in terms of their thoughts, feelings and behaviours, as the processes of change unfold. While each manager′s journey was found to be unique, the framework proved to be ubiquitous in enabling the mapping of all the managers′ journeys, and it also accommodates literature on phenomena as diverse as learning, personal transition, catastrophe and survival, trauma and stress, loss and “death”, and worry and grief. The findings emphasize the profoundness and deeply felt emotionality of many managers′ experiencing of change in organizations. Finally, identifies the outcomes of managers′ journeys through significant attempts at organizational change. Also presents the reported helping and hindering factors to those journeys. Implications of these findings are pursued, particularly in terms of the leadership and development roles and behaviours required, if the organization and its management are to move beyond simply requiring change towards actively facilitating its achievement.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how different community groups differ in the extent to which environmentally friendly behaviours are performed, as well as how they differ across a host of other psychologically relevant variables.

The study was conducted via a self‐report questionnaire delivered to four community samples (environmentalists; performance car enthusiasts; young and older people; n=124) assessing demographic information, ecological behaviour, and the psychological variables.

Results showed that environmentalists engage in more ecological behaviour, are more cooperative, have stronger social and personal norms, a more internal locus of control, feel more collective guilt, and identify less with Australia than performance car enthusiasts. Differences in younger and older populations revealed that young people engage in less ecological behaviour, cooperate less, have a more external locus of control, and identify less with Australia.

The study may provide a starting‐point for future research and behaviour change campaigns aiming to develop methods for increasing ecological behaviour in specific segments of the community.

The paper is important in understanding factors contributing to ecological behaviour, and differs from previous research in that it identifies that certain variables are represented differently in different community samples.

Adverse situations negatively impact project stakeholders’ engagement. Past research has sporadically investigated adverse situations affecting stakeholder engagement but lacks a thorough empirical investigation. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

A web survey was designed to address the knowledge gap of the identification of the impactful adverse situations during multi-stakeholder engagement. The research yielded 144 completed responses from multi-stakeholders engaged in globally distributed ICT projects.

Exploratory factor analysis revealed eight factors that underpin 26 adverse situations. The top factors, ranked in terms of importance according to their Relative Importance Index (RII) are: dysfunctional conflicts, dearth of reasoning, glitches in project governance, clash of personalities.

This research reveals the factors that can impact engagement in the form of meaningful clusters and dimensions and opens-up a future research agenda toward causation and mitigation studies related to adversarial stakeholder engagement. The study focuses on globally distributed ICT projects and has not explored generalizability in other sectors.

This research enables project managers and stakeholder analysts to get an understanding on the importance of different dimensions of adverse situations in the way stakeholders think, act and emote.

Awareness on the potential adversarial stakeholder engagement helps in effectively managing the sustained stakeholder relationships and mental well-being of project stakeholders.

This research contributes to project management practice, as it reveals the underlying factors of adverse situations occurring during multi-stakeholders’ engagement, provides clarity on their components and ranks them in terms of importance for their overall effect on stakeholders’ engagement.

Storytelling through virtual reality (VR) combines the strengths of cutting-edge technology with traditional informational campaigns. As a tool for climate change mitigation, VR has been shown to educate individuals and stimulate both emotional and cognitive responses that promote pro-environmental behavior. This paper aims to investigate whether these benefits extend to the field of green investing through an experiment conducted with a sample of small business entrepreneurs.

The experimental design involved making choices between bonds varying in maturity dates, annual interest and environmental classification (regular versus green). To identify potential impacts of the immersive experience on investment decisions, these choices were made both before and after exposure to VR videos illustrating the devastating effects of climate change. A multiple price list was employed to elicit subjects' risk preferences, enabling the joint estimation of the treatment effect and the risk and time preference parameters.

The findings indicate that, when risk and time preference parameters are controlled for, a VR experience can nudge toward green investment choices. This effect is more profound among those who already exhibit a greater propensity to opt for green investments.

Previous research shows that negative emotions, such as guilt, affect pro-environmental intentions, as well as actions, while message vividness through immersive experiences is effective in nudging greener behavior. Since analogous results in the framework of financial investments are not currently available, this paper seeks to test whether VR videos depicting the adverse effects of climate change can generate negative emotions associated with experiencing these effects and make them salient in subsequent investment decisions made by small business entrepreneurs.

Considers the penal law in Poland since the change in regime from totalitarian to democratic state. Discusses the different approaches used and the change in crime over the decade. Gives some statistics. States that Polish law will have to change to comply with European law as it strive to join the economic community. Concludes that the reader should “ponder anew the sense and role of penal responsibility” on an international scale.