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The purpose of this paper is to explore and expand the concept of a marketing system for developing a more dynamic and nuanced understanding of marketing. The purpose of the proposed framework is to extend this literature by making salient and explicit how context, market system and value creation are theoretically interrelated. To accomplish this objective, the authors use the framework proposed by Layton (2019) as the theoretical foundation to acquire insights into the market. Particularly, they investigate how four distinct marketing systems (i.e. anarchy, structured, emergent and purposeful market systems) operate in a developing economy. In addition, the study explores the market's effects of technological advancement, sociocultural influences, historical background and political institutions, as well as the responses of political entities, firms and consumers. Also, the positive and negative effects of the various marketing systems are analyzed. Finally, the authors investigate the changing marketplace in various industrial sectors (e.g. home appliances, food, apparel/fashion and transportation) to provide marketing researchers and practitioners with insights. In essence, the study focuses on the sectors related to everyday consumption.

This analysis uses a theoretical approach to extend the understanding concept of marketing. To examine the numerous market systems in India, the authors use an approach developed by Layton (2007). This theoretical approach is intended to sensitize scholars to critical processes rather than a hypothetico-deductive analysis with a prediction goal (Turner, 1986). Epistemologically, this analysis can be classified as a form of discovery-oriented theory development (Wells, 1993).

Although all four systems (e.g. autarchic, emergent, purposeful and structured) are ingrained in India, their functionality differs from the Western system and among industries. For example, the apparel sector appears more autarchic, but the food industry is more purposeful. How the home appliance market operates demonstrates the transition from an autarchic to an emergent system. The authors also uncover additional environmental factors that impact the four types of marketing systems and moderator roles of governate agencies and nonprofit organizations. The externality and positive outcomes also emerged throughout the analysis.

This study articulates the four types of marketing systems and illustrates the environmental factors/antecedents and outcomes for the exchange and value creation. Most importantly, it adds value to the literature by emphasizing the role of government agencies and unrestricted institutions in the mechanism. It also uncovers cultural elements such as spirituality as a catalyst for exchange and value creation.

The analysis provides practitioners with insights into operating the firm in India by articulating the industrial differentiations and the exchange/value creation. Specifically, it provides a blueprint for strategic analysis that can be used prior to market entry to increase the likelihood of market entry success by understanding the nuanced differences that lead to significant operational difficulties if not properly prepared for and managed.

This study adds to our existing knowledge of marketing from a systemic standpoint. It also broadens and explicates marketing system theory by assessing the uniqueness of developing markets.

This paper aims to use systems thinking, systems theory and Camillus’ framework for responding to wicked problems to provide social marketers with a theoretically based framework for approaching strategy formation for wicked problems. The paper treats fast fashion as an illustrative case and takes a step back from implementation to provide a framework for analysing and gaining understanding of wicked problem system structure for social marketers to then plan more effective interventions. The proposed approach is intended as a theory-based tool for social marketing practitioners to uncover system structure and analyse the wicked problems they face.

Following Layton, this work provides theoretically based guidelines for analysing the black box of how to develop and refine strategy as first proposed in Camillus’ (2008) framework for responding to wicked issues.

The prescription thus developed for approaching wicked problems’ system structure revolves around identifying the individuals, groups or entities that make up the system involved in the wicked problem, and then determining which social mechanisms most clearly drive each entity and which outcomes motivate these social mechanisms, before determining which role the entities play as either incumbent, challenger or governance and which social narratives drive each role’s participation in the wicked problem.

This paper shows that using systems thinking can help social marketers to gain big picture thinking and develop strategy for responding to complex issues, while considering the consequences of interventions.

It has long been recognised that humans draw from a large pool of processing aids to help manage the everyday challenges of life. It is not uncommon to observe individuals adopting simplifying strategies when faced with ever increasing amounts of information to process, and especially for decisions where the chosen outcome will have a very marginal impact on their well-being. The transactions costs associated with processing all new information often exceed the benefits from such a comprehensive review. The accumulating life experiences of individuals are also often brought to bear as reference points to assist in selectively evaluating information placed in front of them. These features of human processing and cognition are not new to the broad literature on judgment and decision-making, where heuristics are offered up as deliberative analytic procedures intentionally designed to simplify choice. What is surprising is the limited recognition of heuristics that individuals use to process the attributes in stated choice experiments. In this paper we present a case for a utility-based framework within which some appealing processing strategies are embedded (without the aid of supplementary self-stated intentions), as well as models conditioned on self-stated intentions represented as single items of process advice, and illustrate the implications on willingness to pay for travel time savings of embedding each heuristic in the choice process. Given the controversy surrounding the reliability of self-stated intentions, we introduce a framework in which mixtures of process advice embedded within a belief function might be used in future empirical studies to condition choice, as a way of increasingly judging the strength of the evidence.

This paper aims to conceptualise and characterise brand systems and outline propositions and research avenues to advance the systems’ view of branding.

A conceptual synthesis approach is adopted to integrate the extant branding research perspectives. The conceptual framework is grounded in the theoretical foundation of marketing systems theory.

The conceptual framework delineates brand inputs, throughputs, outcomes and feedback effects within a brand system. It configures the complexity and dynamics of brand value formation among brand actors within the branding environment.

This paper contributes to systems thinking in branding and brand value co-creation research. It extends marketing systems theory into the branding context and provides research directions for exploring the structural and functional configurations, cause–consequence processes and outcome concerns of brand value formation.

This conceptual framework informs brand development, management and regulation at a macro level. Managers can apply the brand system concept to identify and manage conflicting expectations of brand actors and alleviate adverse brand outcomes such as negative brand externalities, enhancing overall brand system health and societal value.

This research expands the scope of brand actor agency and identifies the likelihood of disproportionate brand outcomes. It provides methodological guidelines for analysis and intervention in brand systems.

In 2021, a public library in Ontario, Canada established a branch in an affordable housing building. Using interviews with library and support workers who work in the building (n = 8) and an analysis of media that describes the partnership (n = 16), this chapter explores how their partnership may create social infrastructure for tenants. Social scientists have positioned strengthening social infrastructure, a community’s network of systems and spaces that facilitate social relationships, as an antidote to many of society’s most pressing social issues, such as social inequity. An understanding of this partnership, its purpose, and how it intends to serve neighborhood members provides insight into how public libraries and non-profit and community organizations together provide social infrastructure for those living in affordable housing. Strengthening a community’s social infrastructure may be a vital step toward building socially sustainable communities in the twenty-first century.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the respective effects of advertising, word of mouth (operationalized as “tweets” on Twitter), and serialization on sales of console game series in Japan.

To do this, the author classified console game series into four categories on the basis of their sales, identified a singular case that corresponds to each category, and presented a performance calculation model that approximates variation in sales for the first and second titles of each series.

Coupled with the results generated by the performance models a comparison of each game series showed that although word-of-mouth and backward serialization may influence sales performance for the first title in a console game series, sales of the second title in the series were most heavily influenced by forward serialization and advertising. The author further found that word-of-mouth via social networks was unlikely to affect the sales performance of a series’ second title.

The sales of first title video game console series permit the forecasting and evaluation of the sales’ second title performance through the performance calculation model incorporating the advertising, word-of-mouth, and serialization effect and vice versa.

Taken together, these results demonstrate that the affordances of social networking can be used to improve sales performance for the first title in a series, and the use of backward serialization for subsequent titles could incite the purchase of over a million copies of the game(s).

The purpose of this paper is to present retrospective, current and prospective aspects of social marketing and systems science integration.

The paper uses a periodization methodology, based on turning points of conceptual integration between social marketing and systems science.

The paper identifies three periods of integration between social marketing and systems science: initialization of marketing and systems science integration; further conceptualization of the link between marketing and systems science, coupled by permeation of systems thinking into social marketing; and deep integration of social marketing with systems science. The latter period is ongoing and focuses on the origination of strategic systems-based theories and practices for sustainable social change.

The use of a periodization methodology might be biased by subjectivity, as chronological sequences of conceptualization-related events can be hard to decipher and can be reluctant to structural analysis. The necessity to examine the link between marketing and systems science, in so far as social marketing draws upon marketing theory regarding integration with systems science, has social marketing overshadowed by marketing at some points in time.

Historical research of social marketing and systems science integration provides a robust platform for large-scale practical manifestation of system-based strategic projects in social marketing.

This paper demonstrates that the permeation of systems thinking into the social marketing paradigm is gaining momentum and describes the trends, prospects and complexities associated with the accelerating integration.

In the February issue of this Journal a leading article commented on the problem of ‘fasteners’ and the unsightly corrosion which can occur on some structures and equipment due to poor selection of material. This article prompted a look into the literature (if any) on the corrosion of fasteners. With the possible exception of fasteners for use with aluminium it would appear that, at the moment, the most active workers in the fastener field are Dr. D. N. Layton and Mr. P. E. Wright of the GKN Fasteners Corrosion Laboratory, Birmingham, who have written several papers specifically related to this subject. These papers have been used in the preparation of this article.

Month after month we bring forward additional evidence of the injury resulting from the use of chemical “preservatives” in food, while the Authorities feebly hesitate to give specific legal effect to the recommendations of the Departmental Committee which made such a complete inquiry into this question. The evidence upon which those recommendations were based has been fully corroborated by a number of different observers. FERE and others have shown that, as regards boric acid and borax, even when administered in the smallest medicinal doses, there is always the risk that these drugs may aggravate, or even produce, renal diseases. These observations have been confirmed by the work of Dr. CHARLES HARRINGTON, an account of which has been recently published. Twelve cats were fed on the same food; six were treated with borax, one had no preservative, and five were given a preservative which had no apparent effect. The experiment extended over a period of 133 days, the quantity of borax given averaging about 0.5 grms, per diem. Three of the borated cats soon became ill, and one died at the end of six weeks. On the termination of the experiment the cats were all killed, and upon examination it was found that the organs of the six cats which had not taken borax were in perfectly sound and healthy condition, while the others, with one exception, were all suffering from nephritis. Of course, instances are recorded in which patients have been treated with borax and boracic acid with apparently no injurious result, but as a general rule these experiments have been of too short duration to allow of the desired information being arrived at, and the results must therefore be regarded as inconclusive and unreliable. It is perfectly evident that the kidneys may be for a short time quite capable of eliminating many objectionable substances, but the long‐continued use of such bodies, as Dr. HARRINGTON'S researches clearly indicate, sets up an inflammatory condition of the kidneys which, of course, interferes with the effective performance of their proper functions, and lays the foundations for complications of the most serious nature.

The COVID-19 pandemic provides an opportunity to review net neutrality and the notion that bright light rules are necessary to hold broadband providers from exercising market power. The 2015 Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Open Internet Order asserted that broadband providers have the capability and incentive to harm their customers and third-party service providers. It imposed a set of rules to control broadband providers’ offers, prices, and traffic management. The 2017 FCC vacated all but the transparency provisions of the OIO, restoring the oversight of broadband to the FTC.

This paper offers a review of the evidence regarding the effects of net neutrality regulation, including an investigation of the incidence of violations, or lack thereof, during the 2020 pandemic in the United States. It provides a review of the net neutrality literature and the international research on broadband provider behaviour during COVID-19. The paper presents original research conducted with FCC and FTC reports and a survey of news stories. Brief reviews of federal data on network performance and broadband adoption provide additional context. Given the limited incidence of violations that could be uncovered for the period, the paper suggests why broadband providers behaved opposite to regulatory advocates’ predictions. Contrary to many policy assertions, broadband providers did not block or throttle service, nor did they increase prices arbitrarily or decrease quality. Broadband providers appeared to expand availability, lower broadband prices, and make more networks available, frequently without customer charge. The paper suggests how policy could be updated to reflect the actual behaviour of broadband providers.