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This chapter provides an overview of the strategic implications of chatbot use and implementation, including potential applications in marketing, and factors affecting customer acceptance. After presenting a brief history and a classification of conversational artificial intelligence (AI) and chatbots, the authors provide an in-depth review at the crossroads between marketing, business, and human–computer interaction, to outline the main factors that drive users' perceptions and acceptance of chatbots. In particular, the authors describe technology-related factors and chatbot design characteristics, such as anthropomorphism, gender, identity, and emotional design; context-related factors, such as the product type, task orientation, and consumption contexts; and users-related factors such as sociodemographic and psychographic characteristics. Next, the authors detail the strategic importance of chatbots in the field of marketing and their impact on consumers' perceived service quality, satisfaction, trust, and loyalty. After discussing the ethical implications related to chatbots implementation, the authors conclude with an exploration of future opportunities and potential strategies related to new generative AI technologies, such as ChatGPT. Throughout the chapter, the authors offer theoretical insights and practical implications for incorporating conversational AI into marketing strategies.

In the years following the publication of A Theory of Consumption (1923), Hazel Kyrk’s book became the flagship of the field that would later be known as the economics of consumption. It stimulated theoretical and empirical work on consumption. Some of the existing literature on Kyrk (e.g., Kiss & Beller, 2000; Le Tollec, 2020; Tadajewski, 2013) depicted her theory as the starting point of the economics of consumption. Nevertheless, how and why it emerged the way it did remain largely unexplored. This chapter examines Kyrk’s intellectual background, which, we argue, can be traced back to two main movements in the United States: the home economics and the institutionalist. Both movements conveyed specific endeavors as responses to the US material and social transformations that occurred at the turn of the 20th century, notably the perceived changing role of consumption and that of women in US society. On the one hand, Kyrk pursued first-generation home economists’ efforts to make sense of and put into action the shifting of women’s role from domestic producer to consumer. On the other hand, she reinterpreted Veblen’s (1899) account of consumption in order to reveal its operational value for a normative agenda focused on “wise” and “rational” consumption. This chapter studies how Kyrk carried on first-generation home economists’ progressive agenda and how she adapted Veblen’s fin-de-siècle critical account of consumption to the context of the household goods developed in 1900–1920. Our account of Kyrk’s intellectual roots offers a novel narrative to better understand the role of gender and epistemological questions in her theory.

The rise of the regulatory state during the Gilded Age was closely associated with the development of institutionalist ideas in American academia. In their analysis of the emergent regulatory environment, institutionalists like John Commons operated with a fundamentally marginalist theory of value and distribution. This engagement is a central explanation for the ultimate ascendancy of neoclassical economics, and the limitations of the regulatory environment that emerged in the Progressive Era. The eventual rise of the Chicago School and its deregulatory ambitions did constitute a rupture, but one achieved without rejecting preceding conceptions of competition and value. The substantial compatibility of the view of markets underlying both the regulatory and deregulatory periods is stressed, casting doubt about the transformative potential of the resurgent regulatory impulse in the New Gilded Age.

The conflict between institutionalism and neoclassicism in the 20th century has been investigated by scholars over the years. Many of them believe that in the postwar period, neoclassicism triumphed while institutionalism largely disappeared. The present chapter takes a very different view. The late 20th century represents a broad synthesis of neoclassical and institutional themes in a methodology we call pragmatic empiricism. That approach combines the mathematical model building and theoretical formalism of neoclassical economics with the institutional economist’s data-driven statistical analysis and concern for developing institutional forms. We use as a case study the history of American locational economics from the 1930s to the present. The mixing of institutional and neoclassical themes is quite evident in the work of three young scholars at Harvard who effectively initiated American locational economics. In the postwar period, we find a series of outstanding, well-published papers that capture the spirit of the “founders.” These papers do use more modeling, but they also focus on major institutional developments. A broader review of locational works is consistent with the pragmatic empiricism label. The history of locational economics supports the claim that institutionalism, far from disappearing, continues to provide fundamental questions and techniques for modern pragmatic empiricism.

The purpose of the study is to conceptualize the model of the predictors of consumer willingness to purchase green products. This study used the underpinning theories related to consumer willingness by integrating the green concept in deriving the consumer willingness to purchase green products. Based on the underpinning theories of marketing strategies, it was found that marketing mix was still fundamental in business. Therefore, green marketing mix was proposed to describe the consumer's green purchase willingness. Furthermore, corporate social responsibility (CSR) plays an important role as the key to organizational strategy. Thus, CSR is also included in the proposed framework. As this is a conceptual paper, further empirical study needs to carry out to verify the proposed hypotheses. This study contributes to the market practitioners or entrepreneurs in terms of re-considering marketing mix and CSR in deriving customer willingness to purchase green products. This study extends the literature of behavioural intention by integrating green marketing strategies with CSR in determining consumer willingness to purchase.

Do digital technologies of early 21st century capitalism promote or reduce consumer sovereignty? This chapter addresses this question by examining John Kenneth Galbraith’s critique of consumer sovereignty during the post-war period of industrial society and looks at the insights he provides to understand the impact of platform capitalism on consumer sovereignty today. This chapter has the following sections: (1) I review the main postulates of Galbraith’s theory; (2) I highlight the main differences between traditional advertising and online behavioral advertising; (3) I explain how online behavioral advertisement strengthens Galbraith’s dependence effect and revised sequence theories; (4) I then discuss normative challenges raised by digital platform corporations to individual sovereignty; and (5) finally, I argue that platform capitalism is a mature form of Galbraith’s “new industrial state.”