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This paper aims to understand consumers’ response to the trust repair mechanisms adopted by corporate brands in a service sector context following prominent trust damaging organizational transgressions.

Adopting a qualitative approach, six focus group discussions are used to investigate three high-profile consumer trust erosion cases within the service sector.

Consumer trust varies by context. Despite the severity of trust damage, corporate brands can recover trust towards their brands amongst consumers not directly affected by transgressions. Not all trust repair mechanisms are equally applicable to all service contexts, and re-branding could be used as a trust repair mechanism. Corporate brands in the service sector should focus on sense-making, relational approaches and transparency. Orchestration of trust repair mechanisms needs to be integrated within the trust rehabilitation processes.

This study illustrates it is important to reconsider trust repair processes to accommodate context and integrate post-transgression consumer research.

Successful corporate brand rehabilitation of consumer trust requires examination of the trustworthiness dimensions consumers express before and after the transgression to select the most appropriate trust repair mechanisms. Findings suggest organizations also have preventative trust repair management programs.

This research is the first to empirically apply the conceptual framework of Bachmann et al. (2015) to explore consumer responses to the trust repair mechanisms adopted by corporate brands by context.

This study aims to investigate consumer motivations behind brand-related engagement on social media by exploring three different engagement types: consuming, contributing (to) and creating. Previous research suggests that many brands seek to engage with consumers via communications on social networking sites; however, most focus on quantitative metrics and measurement tools to evaluate such behaviour and so offer limited understanding and guidance. To address this gap, the current study utilises a mixed-method approach to investigate the motivations behind each brand-related engagement type to provide deeper insight into what motivates consumers to engage with brand-related posts on social networking sites. This study also aims to investigate whether the motivations between different engagement types exist and whether these vary between brands and other people's brand-related posts.

A two-phase integrated qualitative–quantitative research design was utilised. Twelve semi-structured interviews explored the range of consumers' brand engagement motivations before an online survey (N = 225) identified and confirmed the motivational similarities and differences between the three brand-related engagement types.

Different motives influence each brand-related engagement type, bar the “enjoyment” motive, which triggers all three engagement types. Of particular interest is the identification of a new motive for engagement-seeking compensation that influences negative brand-related engagement.

Through understanding what motivates consumers to consume, contribute and create, brands can tailor their marketing messages to each different brand-related engagement type. This will increase their engagement with consumers on social networking sites, as specific segments can be created by the brand to enhance their targeting strategies based on consumers' differing motivations within social media channels.

This study contributes a much-needed framework of motivations for brand-related engagement on social media, recognising variations in motivations by type of engagement (consume, contribute (to), create).

This study aims to investigate how attributes associated with local food (intrinsic product quality; local support) motivate purchase behaviour. Previous research assumes heterogeneity in consumer motivation, but this has never been formally assessed. As such, the influence of local food attributes in motivating product use is integrated into a model in which consumer values and personal characteristics/situational variables are specified as moderators.

Eight hypotheses are tested using data collected from a quota sample of respondents recruited via an online panel of 1,223 shoppers. A three-stage analysis is used using structural equation modelling. Moderation effects are tested using both latent interactions and multiple-group analysis.

Shoppers purchase local food more frequently as a consequence of local support rather than intrinsic product quality. Unpicking these relationships reveal that local support has an amplified effect when local identity is higher, and when the shopper is either female or of an older age (55 years plus). Surprisingly, the influence of intrinsic product quality is equivalent by gender, age and location (rural/urban).

Marketers promoting locally produced foods should focus on both the intrinsic attributes of local food as well as the role it plays within the local community. The latter is more likely to be successful with communications aimed at women and older consumers.

With previous studies focusing on how local food attributes influence favourable consumer behaviours, the current study unpicks these relationships by examining heterogeneity in responses. This is the first study to concurrently use attributes, values and personal characteristics/situational variables in explaining shopping behaviour for local food.

Despite growing awareness of ethical and social responsibility (E&SR) issues in academia and industry, investigation of their influence on consumers' buying decisions has been limited. To help fill this gap, this paper reports the findings of a preliminary investigation to establish the key E&SR factors affecting grocery shopping behaviour.

The study drew upon existing literature in the areas of ethics, social responsibility, shopping and store image to identify the individual elements of E&SR. An exploratory qualitative study of E&SR consumers (E&SRC) was then conducted, using seven focus groups, and a typology of key factors of concern to these consumers was derived from analysis.

The findings identify seven core categories, containing seventy‐one sub‐categories. These interlink to form three main clusters: food quality and safety, human rights and ethical trading, and environmental (green) issues. Shoppers trade off these E&SR factors against standard retail purchasing factors, in particular convenience, price and merchandise range when deciding which shops to use and what products to buy.

The typology derived from this exploratory research may be used alongside conventional store image factors in future research, to help predict those factors that influence purchasing behaviour. Similarly, it may assist brand and retail managers in profiling, and meeting the needs of, E&SRC.

The research distinguishes differences in how shopper types vary in their behaviour, and proposes a set of implications for managers of the research and areas for further investigation.

The purpose of this paper is to identify, and explore the importance of, ethical and socially responsible (ESR) factors in Australian consumers' choices of grocery products and stores.

Following an earlier study in the UK, an initial qualitative investigation, then a survey of grocery shoppers in New South Wales, was conducted. Factor analysis explored the structure of the choice factors for grocery products and stores in “main” and “top‐up” shopping situations. Finally, four multiple regression equations measured the effects of these factors.

This paper finds that, when “top‐up” shopping, ESR consumers are less discriminating than when “main” shopping. The provision of ethically farmed produce has most influence on store choice when “main” shopping, while retailers' fair trading and environmentally responsible policies have the greatest influence when “topping‐up”. The ethical provenance of goods is the most important factor in product choice.

The constructs developed need to be validated internationally.

The two large Australian retail grocers may benefit by developing roles as “choice editors” on behalf of their ESR customers; whilst smaller retailers may gain advantage by concentrating on community‐based, environmentally friendly and fair trading policies. Manufacturers of grocery products may benefit by emphasizing their products' ESR provenance and their organisations' ethical policies.

This is the first study of its kind in Australia. It contributes to the development of an internationally relevant set of ESR shopping choice factors.