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Purpose – The objectives of this study are to explore how consumers achieve, maintain, and/or regain privacy and to more fully understand the meaning consumers ascribe to privacy.

Methodology/approach – Image-elicited depth interviews were conducted on a theoretical sample of 23 informants.

Findings – Consumers are active participants who assert their dominance in the marketplace and resist organizational practices that impinge upon their privacy. Seven categories of privacy management practices were identified: withdraw, defend, feint, neutralize, attack, perception management, and reconcile. The findings also reveal that when informants desire privacy and engage in these practices, they are ultimately in a quest for the meta-goal of sovereignty over their respective personal domains.

Research limitations/implications – This study provides support for and expands upon knowledge of the privacy management practices identified in extant literature, and offers an encompassing conceptualization of privacy as it applies in the context of contemporary consumption.

Social implications – This study may assist policy makers and managers in their efforts to develop appropriate solutions to manage consumers’ privacy concerns and support them in their pursuit of privacy.

Originality/value of the paper – This study injects the voice of the consumer into the privacy debate. A broad theoretical framework for understanding what consumers mean when they talk about privacy and the practices they engage in to “do privacy” is presented. It is hoped that this study provides a basis for managing consumer privacy concerns and future research on the issue so that improved outcomes can be attained for all.

Spatial ability is essential for engineers’ professional performance. Several studies describe it as a skill that can be enhanced using new technologies. Virtual reality (VR) is an emerging technology that is proving very useful for training different skills and improving spatial perception. In this chapter, the authors firstly present some previous works that use VR to train students, mainly in the area of engineering studies, and which demonstrate that VR can improve some aspects of the spatial perception. This study took a group of engineering students who used VR technologies to carry out learning activities designed to improve their spatial perception, which was measured with a widely used spatial ability test. The results obtained confirm that the use of VR technologies can improve students’ spatial perception. This proposal is easily transferable to other educational contexts. On the one hand, it could be implemented to improve spatial ability in other engineering studies, and on the other hand, with simple adaptation, it could be used to enhance other skills.

Recent research on immersive experiences in online environments for higher education has attributed a fundamental role to two distinct yet connected psychological phenomena: the feelings of being virtually present in the education environment, often simply called presence, and peak episodes of flow. The authors conceptually delimitate these two psychological facets of e-learners’ experiences and examine their interplay. The authors show how flow episodes are elicited by students’ sense of control over the online education environment, their attention being focussed on the learning tasks, and their feelings of being physically placed in the online education setting. Also, the interactivity created by the online education environment evokes an e-learner’s imagery, which in turn triggers presence feelings and episodes of flow. The authors further show that, although presence and flow are triggered by some common antecedents, they differ in the object of the individual’s immersion, and that presence feelings facilitate flow. Moreover, the authors provide practical recommendations for higher education institutions, policy makers and the academic and information and communication technology community involved in e-learning, to make sure e-learner experiences reach their fullest potential.

This study explored the impact of integrating digital tools on professional preparation in literacy, specifically an online digital video portal for teachers’ self-observation of instructional practice.

As a design experiment (Bradley & Reinking, 2011), a graduate-level Reading Education course was revisioned for blended learning to accommodate the professional development of practicing teachers in a rural, remote context. This chapter focuses on understanding how teachers experience video as a platform for reflection on and improvement of practice, with implications for those who seek to incorporate digital video into literacy professional development.

Through video analysis mediated by the use of a self-evaluation guide and a collaborative, online community, teacher-learners reflected on their own and their peers’ pedagogy and language interactions with students. After overcoming initial struggle with watching themselves on the video, the close analysis of clips became a powerful catalyst for professional growth. Teachers’ reflections shifted from outward-directed to inner-directed.

To successfully integrate video analysis in Reading Education practicums and professional development for in-service teachers, consideration should be given to technical as well as pedagogical components. Purposefully building in various scaffolds, for example, technical tutorials, prompts to focus video analysis, and safe platforms for sharing and collaboration, proved to be beneficial for teacher-learners in our courses.

The study focuses on micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) perceptions about using Fintech instruments to meet their financial requirements.

Methodology: The research utilises a quantitative method, which entails collecting primary data from 400 participants using an organised questionnaire. Chi-square tests, principal component analysis and multiple linear regression are some of the statistical tools utilised to analyse the findings.

Findings: The study’s findings indicate that only a small percentage of business owners know that Fintech instruments can be a source of financing for their companies. In addition, the items utilised in the research led to the generation of three different aspects: banking, MSME and Fintech.

Originality: The previous study indicates that several scholars have focused on various facets of the application and utilisation of Fintech. In the category of digital payments, the total transaction value is anticipated to reach $8.49 trillion in 2022. By 2027, it is expected that the entire transaction value will have increased by 12.31 per cent each year (CAGR 2022–2027), totaling US$15.17 trillion. Digital commerce is expected to have a total transaction value of US$5.49 trillion in 2022, making it the market’s largest segment. On the other hand, there isn’t much research that concentrates on developing countries, and the standards those studies need to meet are relatively stringent. In the context of MSMEs, this is an innovative approach taken towards the State of Punjab.

Need: Fintech services have an important role in bringing about significant change by providing innovative financial services, addressing credit gaps and reshaping how financial services are delivered. Fintech instruments are gaining very high popularity in terms of functions and novelty and can be predicted as the future of operations in the financial sector. Moreover, Fintech instruments can be seen to have a close connection to the MSME-guided programmes. Thus, it would be pretty interesting to note if there lies a need for the optimum implications of Fintech in MSMEs and upcoming start-ups.

The present research builds on three complementary theories to explore how social influence processes in interaction bring about opinion and sentiment change: expectation states theory, affect control theory, and social influence network theory.

An experimental study is used to test intersections between the theories and assess how performance expectations, affective impressions of group members, and emergent perceptions of their influence work together to generate opinion and sentiment change.

Respondent opinions shifted in the direction of group leaders’ opinions, regardless of behavioral interchange patterns. Opinion change was greater when a third group member shared the leader’s opinion. Change in affective impressions was shaped by the group leader’s opinion, the assertiveness of their behavior, and the support of a third group member. The perceived influence composition of the group predicted opinion and sentiment change, above and beyond the effects of conditional manipulations. Features of the group interaction led to inferences about status characteristics that reinforced the influence order of the group.

The chapter tests hypotheses from earlier work and explores status signals not yet tested as predictors of opinion change – behavioral interchange patterns and the degree of support for one’s ideas. In addition, it examines inferences about status characteristics following the group discussion, and influence effects on the prevailing definition of the situation.

This chapter contributes to recent integrative work that explores the relationship between performance expectations, affective impressions, and social influence. Synergistic processes forwarded by earlier research are tested, along with several newly proposed linkages.

Purpose: This paper uses performance theory to explore how wine-tourism experiences are orchestrated by wine tour guides to encourage engagement of consumers. It describes how such orchestration is built on material elements such as landscapes, architecture, vineyards, production facilities, and wine tastings.

Design/methodology/approach: A multi-layer ethnographic research on wine-tourism was employed. The interviews, observations, and field notes were analyzed through the lens of performance theory. A constant comparative method was used to identify emergent patterns, and a hermeneutic method was used to interpret the data.

Findings: The paper builds on performance theory and delineates the ways in which guides co-create intense experiences with participants. It portrays how tour guides often adjust their theatrical scripts to consumers’ unique needs through creative variations: surprise treats, activities, and personal stories. When guides take pleasure in tours, participants do as well, resulting in memorable co-created experiences. The tours feature processes such as pitching and relation-building techniques that call upon identity, morality, and materiality scripts, which ultimately build a sense of social obligation among participants toward tour guides and winery staff.

Originality/value: From a theoretical perspective, the paper adds value to the discussion of performance in tourism by suggesting that the service blueprint, architecture, and employee training are only part of the story. This paper shows how consumer engagement and interactions between participants, guides, architecture, and landscapes are essential elements of memorable experiences.

Research limitations: Like other studies, there are limitations to our study as well. Our study only included one-day wine tours. A broader investigation of strategic alliances between tour companies and wineries, and how wine tourists experience and sustain a sense of social obligations to the wineries they visit, will provide further insights into how wine-tourism functions as a co-creative emergent form of consumption involving individuals, products, and processes.