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This study examines handmade clothing consumption as a means of self-expression by exploring the interrelationships between consumers' self-expression, brand love and word of mouth.

Using a descriptive research design, data were collected from 295 respondents in South Africa who posted about fashion on social media and who had bought handmade clothing in the 6 months prior to data collection. Structural equation modelling was used to examine the interrelationships between consumers' self-expression, brand love and word of mouth.

Brand love intervenes between consumers' self-brand connections and word of mouth about handmade clothing. More specifically, brand love strengthens positive word of mouth online and mitigates negative word-of-mouth intentions following a handmade clothing product failure scenario.

The study enlightens scholarly understanding of consumers' self-expression motivations for using ready-made handmade clothing that results in brand love and positive word of mouth.

Handmade clothing marketers who tap into consumers' self-expression and who can establish brand love among consumers can similarly create beneficial consumer–brand relationships.

Consumers often use handmade clothing for the purpose of self-expression, which provides subsequent spin-offs for brands in the form of brand love and positive word of mouth. Objective self-awareness theory provides a parsimonious lens to reveal the important role that brand love plays as a mechanism to explain the linkage of consumers' self-brand connections to word of mouth about handmade clothing.

Since the 1986 initiation of Vietnam’s Đổi Mới economic policies designed to increase national Gross Domestic Product and increase international market competitiveness, the country has undergone drastic changes in infrastructure, industrialization levels, market practices and standards of living. These changes are creating an abundance of unprecedented transformations among the many ethnic minority groups, who are used as a source of tourism revenue due to their unique cultural customs, clothing, and languages that differ from Vietnam’s majority ethnic group, the Kinh. Yet, while these groups are being exoticized for their rich cultural history and practices, they are simultaneously being required to discard many traditional livelihood methods and practices in order to keep up with the swiftly changing economy and social space. Despite these ethnic minority communities being presented as the main attraction in many areas, unequal economic and social distribution compared to areas mainly composed of Kinh can be seen. Similar findings have been discovered across other ethnically diverse areas of the country. Despite flourishing tourism to the region and steady rates of regional growth in gross domestic product, a gender analysis reveals the inequalities that undergird the system. This chapter confirms the impact of tourism on development when gender is not mainstreamed into development planning and implementation.

This study aims to establish a relationship between creative tourism and experiences in the traditional handicrafts of Barcelos (Portugal). Based on a qualitative approach, it also aims at analyzing the failures and absences from the tourist market by creating new proposals and responses to the demand. The conceptual framework of this study develops three proposals: first, to present new concepts and opportunities for the tourism market; second, to establish a direct relationship between the local traditional handicrafts, creative tourism and experiences; and finally, to promote traditions that add value to the local development.

This study uses an ethnographic case analysis research design to investigate the propositions (ten in-depth interviews with technicians and artisans in Barcelos, Portugal). The key constructs are drawn from empirical research among handicraftsmen in which data analysis was carried out based on a qualitative analysis.

The results suggest the experience, knowledge and importance of learning this dynamic in an entrepreneurship tourism perspective. Creative tourism and experiences are growing and strengthening the territories and consumer satisfaction in specific artisan, cultural and tourism entrepreneurship contexts.

This study fills a large gap in the territorial market, associating the knowledge of new concepts with the success of the tourism entrepreneurship. The findings provide solutions for helping handicraftsmen to improve their decision-making logic and increase the speed of market growth. There has been an increased emphasis on local and handmade goods that are linked to the culture and tourism of specific destinations.

Tourism managers and artisan entrepreneurs can use the outcome of this study to gain in-depth understanding of customer experiences (i.e. consumers of local handicrafts) and develop effective marketing strategies and further stage the operational environment that can maximize customers’ perceived experiential value.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of culture in artisan entrepreneurship. It is argued that culture plays a critical role in entrepreneurial behaviour as culture is a key determinant of what it means to be a person. The concept of culture is explored from a micro level of analysis therefore, conceptualising culture from the perspective of the individual entrepreneur’s personality. The main research question being investigated within this paper is: whether artisan entrepreneurs share common personality traits with other entrepreneur groups, using the five factor model (FFM) of personality as the basis of the conceptual model presented herein.

A literature review on the emerging field of artisan entrepreneurship, followed by a review of the literature on personality theory and entrepreneurship. Then, drawing upon the FFM of personality, a conceptual framework is introduced which proposes a relationship between the Big Five personality traits and four dimensions of artisan entrepreneurship such as cultural heritage, community entrepreneurship, craftsmanship and innovation, developed from concepts derived from extant literature.

The theoretical contribution is in the form of propositions. Four propositions have been formulated around the entrepreneurial personality of artisan business owners for each of the four dimensions: cultural heritage, community entrepreneurship, craftsmanship and innovation.

The paper is the first to propose a relationship between the Big Five personality dimensions and the likelihood of starting and/or running a business among an entrepreneur group rather than explaining personality differences among entrepreneur and non-entrepreneur groups. The focus of the paper is specifically on artisan entrepreneurs and it has been proposed that the personality trait of agreeableness is important in the decision to start a cultural-based business. It has also been proposed that artisan entrepreneurs possess personal characteristics of openness to newness and openness to innovation that are integral to regional development.

Purpose: Curatorial consumption studies have hitherto focused on the consumption of family heirlooms. By exploring curatorial consumption within the context of vintage outlets, the authors extend its usage to other consumption sites, allowing them to further develop the construct.

Design/Methodology/Approach: Participant observation was employed at vintage outlets alongside in-depth interviews with 15 vintage traders incorporating object elicitation.

Findings: The authors identify the potential for curatorial consumption to help further develop understanding of individuals’ relationships with their possessions. The authors present a re-contextualization of curatorial consumption, which expands the term beyond caring for family heirlooms, allowing them to incorporate additional contexts. The authors identify vintage traders’ roles as guardians for their merchandise and their sense of responsibility to ensure objects’ circulation to future generations. The authors develop the findings around themes related to curation: acquisition, preservation, and transference. Running through these themes is an overarching concern for historical objects.

Originality/Value: While few studies loosely refer to curatorial consumption, the construct remains underdeveloped. The re-contextualization allows to unpack its potential to enhance understanding of individuals’ relationships with their possessions. In contrast to existing curatorial consumption work that emphasizes the sense of continuity with ancestors, the authors extend this to consider how connections with the past can be maintained beyond local family settings.

This study aims to investigate how an organic cotton production network learns to maintain its hybrid network and its sustainability in the face of internal and external pressures.

A qualitative case study was conducted in Justa Trama, a Brazilian‐based organic cotton production network formed by six members with different roles and organisational logics.

The study contributes to the literature on hybrid organisations by suggesting that in the case of networks, a compromise strategy is required at the internal level and a manipulation strategy is required at the external level. The network has to learn how to engineer a compromise among internal members and to enforce change among external institutions to maintain its sustainability.

The study was performed in Brazil, a country with serious social and environmental problems. The study thus informs managers of social economy organisations on how to deal with internal and external pressures to maintain their organisation's sustainability as well as policy makers on the importance of these alternative organisations and the importance of specific legislation to stimulate this type of initiative.

The body of research on how hybrid organisations learn to deal with the mutual influence of internal organisational responses and changes in external institutions is limited. Furthermore, this mutual influence has rarely been studied in the context of networks, in which multiple members have to work together to achieve organisational and network‐level objectives as well as to respond to institutional pressures.

Recognizing novel entrepreneurial opportunities arising from a crisis is of paramount importance for firms. Hence, understanding the pivotal factors that facilitate firms in this endeavor holds significant value. This study delves into such factors within a representative empirical context impacted by a crisis, drawing insights from existing literature on opportunity recognition during such tumultuous periods.

The authors conducted a qualitative inspection of 14 Italian firms during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. The authors collected a rich body of multi-source qualitative data, including 34 interviews (with senior managers and entrepreneurs) and secondary data (press releases, videos, web interviews, newspapers, reports and academic articles) in two phases (March–August 2020 and September–December 2020).

The results suggest the existence of a process model of opportunity recognition during crises based on five entrepreneurial influencing factors (entrepreneurial knowledge, entrepreneurial alertness, entrepreneurial proclivity, entrepreneurial personality and entrepreneurial purpose).

Various scholars have highlighted that, in times of crises, it is not easy and indeed very challenging for entrepreneurs to identify novel entrepreneurial opportunities. However, recent research has shown that crises can also positively impact entrepreneurs and their capacity to identify new entrepreneurial opportunities. Given these findings, not much research has analyzed the process by which entrepreneurs identify novel entrepreneurial opportunities during crises. This study shows that some entrepreneurial influencing factors are very important to identify new entrepreneurial opportunities during crises.

In the last decade, much has been debated about the topic of BDSM in various scientific fields. With the slow and steady blending of BDSM with mainstream culture, which escalated rapidly with the appearance and extreme popularity of Fifty Shades of Grey, BDSM has become a current topic of discussion in a broad variety of contexts. Moreover, with the recent change in medical classification of BDSM practices in ICD-11 (World Health Organization, 2018), which strictly clinically separated the sexological diagnosis of nonconsensual sadism from consensual SM practices, BDSM has also become a hot issue in the community of diagnostic experts. This chapter explores three aspects of the evolution of BDSM subculture in the postcommunist Czech Republic in the context of the continuous worldwide development of BDSM subculture – (1) role-play, (2) unification, and (3) commodification in the BDSM subculture – situating them within the broader context of the development of society in the postcommunist environment and the development of the BDSM scene worldwide.

This paper aims to further enhance the understanding of elements relevant to creating affection for a country’s identity, culture and values.

An overview of theoretical contributions is followed by a description of exploratory research on the overall image of Turkey. Survey-based empirical data (a convenience sample consisting of 838 Croatian citizens) are analysed using Statistica v7; mean values and a t-test are applied. The importance-performance Analysis (IPA) is also performed. The level of the respondent’s actual knowledge of Turkey is analysed by examining the content of their associations.

Research findings support a proven multidimensionality of the country/destination image construct. Turkey has become an appealing tourist destination; its image consists of positive associations that point to the effectiveness of soap operas broadcast abroad and promotional investments into the creation of the country image in foreign markets. Negative perceptions are related to human rights and gender inequalities.

The use of a convenience sample (with predominantly female respondents) places a clear constraint on generalising the findings. Consequently, the results should be treated only as indicative. Furthermore, the one-country nature of the study limits the implications to theory.

Findings that soap operas might be a valuable source for Turkey’s image formation, and as such affect subsequent consumer behaviour, provide valuable insights for tourism and international marketing professionals who are either already in business or who are planning to internationalise future activities.

The study adds to the existing knowledge suggesting that popular culture, i.e. soap operas, is an interesting dimension of country/destination image deserving of further research.