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This study aims to explore how a postmodern tribe enacts and re-interprets ideologies as a part of consumers’ collective experience, to enhance our understanding of consumer communities in conjunction with ideological capacities.

The community of “presenteers” is conceptualized as a self-organized tribe with heterogeneous components that generate capacities to act. Netnographic observation was conducted on 18 presenteer accounts and lasted around six months. Real-time data were collected by taking screenshots of the posts and stories that these users created and publicly shared. Data were analysed by adopting assemblage theory, combining inductive and deductive approaches. Firstly, a qualitative visual-textual content analysis of the tribe’s defining components was conducted. Then, the process continued with the thematic analysis of the ideological underpinnings of the tribe’s enactments.

Findings shed light on the ways in which consumer communities interpret the entanglement of religious, political, and cultural ideologies in shaping their experiences. In the case of the presenteers tribe, findings reflect a novel ideological interplay between neo-Ottomanism, post-feminism and consumerism.

The study offers a deep dive into a unique tribe that is being organized around the consumer-created practice of “presenteering” and investigates consumer communalization in alignment with the ideological turn in culture-oriented interpretative research on consumers, consumption, and markets. This exploration helps to bridge the research on the communalization of consumers with the recent discussions of ideology in the postmodern market.

The study offers a deep dive into a unique tribe that is being organized around the consumer-created practice of “presenteering” and investigates consumer communalization in alignment with the ideological turn in culture-oriented interpretative research on consumers, consumption, and markets. This exploration helps to bridge the research on the communalization of consumers with the recent discussions of ideology in the postmodern market.

The paper covers the topic of power strategies between actors and the interplay between the service ecosystem and the actor(s), and vice versa. The paper addresses the lack of conceptual development concerning power considerations beyond dyadic, rigid and role-based models found in general marketing literature. Further, the paper opens the area of power relationships, using the service ecosystem as conceptual framework.

The paper has a systemic and sociological view on service-ecosystems using mainly Giddens' structuration theory. Service-dominant logic literature from 2004 to 2021 is systematically reviewed for power issues and qualitatively analyzed. Mayring's step model of, firstly, inductive and, secondly, deductive category development is applied. Subcategories were identified, subsumed and finally grouped into five categories to increase the level of abstraction.

The article investigates power considerations and enables marketers to create power through (1) imbalance, to find strategies and counterstrategies for (2) actor's behavior, to understand the (3) actor's embeddedness within a service ecosystem and its dynamic nature, to learn about (4) institutions and actor's institutional work. A set of seven propositions is presented for the conceptualization of power strategies in a service ecosystem.

The consideration of power on different levels supports both the zooming-in and zooming-out to observe and understand the power phenomena in a service ecosystem. Seven propositions about episodic as well as systemic power relations are presented. Power is conceptualized in service ecosystem as transformative capability of an actor to intervene on institutions and in some way alter them, recognizing that power relations are co-created, dynamic and context-dependent.

The article recognizes different levels (micro-meso-macro) of power considerations and helps practitioners and marketers to create power through (1) imbalance, find strategies and counterstrategies for (2) actor's behavior, understand the (3) actor's embeddedness within a service ecosystem and its dynamic nature, learn about (4) institutions and actor's institutional work. This enables managers to find an appropriate choice of action in their specific context to transform the service ecosystem(s) they are embedded in.

As all social systems are power systems, a service ecosystem can only be fully understood by integrating the elementary concept of power. As such, power considerations within actor strategies and the service ecosystem are relevant to improve the understanding of transformation of the service ecosystem. Power, in the sense of the transformative capability of actors, changes the social and material world.

Power issues are important to understand the “hows” of resource integration in service ecosystems and its transformation or stability.

This study aims to explore the use of a double diamond design method to engage the industry in a sector-wide response to the issues of food waste as constructed by consumers. This particular design method is achieved by an exploration of a collective intelligence-participatory design (CIPD) project to engage industry participants in understanding and responding to consumers’ perceptions of the role of packaging in reducing food waste.

Using the UK Design Council’s double diamond design method as a guiding conceptual principle, the project recruited industry participants from medium to large food businesses across various food categories. Two scoping workshops with industry were held prior to the initiation of a 12-stage project (n = 57), and then two industry workshops were held (n = 4 and 14). Eighty participants completed an online qualitative survey, and 23 industry participants took part in a Think Tank Sprint Series. The Think Tanks used participatory design approaches to understand barriers and opportunities for change within food industry sub-sectors and test the feasibility and acceptability of package designs to reduce consumer waste.

For CIPD to work for complex problems involving industry, it is vital that stakeholders across macro- and micro-subsystems are involved and that adequate time is allowed to address that complexity. Using both the right tools for engagement and the involvement of the right mix of representatives across various sectors of industry is critical to reducing blame shift. The process of divergence and convergence allowed clear insight into the long-term multi-pronged approach needed for the complex problem.

Participatory design has been useful within various behaviour change settings. This paper has demonstrated the application of the double diamond model in a social marketing setting, adding value to an industry-wide project that included government, peak bodies, manufacturing and production and retailers.

This study examines how informal business networks achieve marketing goals in socially uncertain contexts. Drawing from multiple historical sources, Shangbangs, a type of business network that thrived in pre-1949 China, are analyzed.

The Critical Historical Research Method (CHRM) undergirds a study of Shangbangs’ historicity (i.e. their socio-historically embedded multiplicity, including organizational forms, activities and connotations.

As informal regional, professional, project-based, special-product-based or mixed marketing networks, Shangbangs relied on “flexible specialization” and coupled multiple business needs to market goods and services, business organizations, specific social values and, when necessary, to debrand business rivals.

This analysis extends theories about marketing networks by probing their subtypes, diverse marketing activities, multipronged channels and relationship building with social entities (including underground societies, business associations and guilds) in response to pre-1949 China’s market uncertainties. Substantiating an alternative approach to “flexible specialization” and marketing innovations within the pre-1949 Chinese economy shows how a parallel theoretical framework can complement western-based marketing theories.

This first comprehensive analysis of Shangbangs, an innovative historical Chinese marketing network outside the conventional market-corporate dichotomy, can inform theory building for marketing strategy-making and management conditioned by social contexts.

This study aims to investigate the ecological awareness of Chinese consumers towards fast fashion and examine the effect of social sustainability claims on green brand image and purchase intentions in China, considering China’s unique environmental policy landscape and its significant role in the global fast fashion industry. The study explores the role of altruistic values in promoting sustainability within the well-known fast fashion brand “H” and how they shape brand image, consumer satisfaction and brand equity.

The study collected data from 257 Chinese participants and used a serial mediation model through the PROCESS macro in SPSS to analyse the correlation between green brand image, created through sustainability claims and consumer purchase intentions. The model also assessed the intermediary effects of brand image, satisfaction and equity.

The findings of the research indicate a direct and positive relationship between green brand image and consumer purchase intentions, emphasising the need for clothing and textile industry marketers to strategically promote altruistic values in their sustainability efforts and highlighting the importance of ecological awareness in shaping consumer behaviour in the Chinese context. This approach enhances green satisfaction and green brand equity and ultimately leads to higher green purchase intentions.

This study provides significant insights into the effectiveness of incorporating social sustainability claims in advertising to improve a brand’s green image and influence consumer behaviour. It emphasises the importance of altruistic values in sustainability strategies, offering valuable guidelines for marketers in enhancing green satisfaction and brand equity, thereby boosting consumer purchase intentions in the context of green branding and sustainability advertising. Focussing specifically on the Chinese market, this research sheds light on the impact of ecological awareness among Chinese consumers within the fast-fashion industry. Given China’s substantial role in shaping global fast-fashion production and its evolving environmental policies, this focus adds significant depth to our understanding of sustainability claims’ influence within this crucial consumer base.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of physical environment design (PED) and its antecedents on consumers’ emotional well-being (EWB). Drawing on place identity and emotional theories, the study aims to provide a new perspective to retail store experiences.

A survey of 800 respondents was conducted in London, out of which 764 responses were constructively used. The data was collected from international retail outlets, and structural equation modelling was used to analyse the data.

The empirical results show that PED has a positive effect on consumers’ EWB. Among the antecedents, visual identity does not have any significant effect on PED and EWB. In contrast, communication had a significant effect on PED but did not have any effect on EWB, and further, cultural heritage had a positive effect on both PED and EWB. Further, moderator analysis identifies the boundary conditions under which specific theories hold.

The value of this paper lies in its potential to be used for creating the perfect design planning in retail stores. Significant implications for managers and researchers are highlighted.

This paper presents an innovative approach to develop the principles of retail store’s PED to support the EWB of consumers.

Preventative health services are keen to identify how to engage men and increase their participation, thus improving health, well-being and life expectancy over time. Prior research has shown general gender norms are a key reason for men’s avoidance of these services, yet there is little investigation of specific gender norms. Furthermore, masculinity has not been examined as a factor associated with customer vulnerability. This paper aims to identify the relationship between gender norm segments for men, likely customer vulnerability over time and subjective health and well-being.

Adult males (n = 13,891) from an Australian longitudinal men’s health study were classified using latent class analysis. Conditional growth mixture modelling was conducted at three timepoints.

Three masculinity segments were identified based on masculine norm conformity: traditional self-reliant, traditional bravado and modern status. All segments had likely customer experience of vulnerability. Over time, the likely experience was temporary for the modern status segment but prolonged for the traditional self-reliant and traditional bravado segments. The traditional self-reliant segment had low subjective health and low overall well-being over time.

Practitioners can tailor services to gender norm segments, enabling self-reliant men to provide expertise and use the “Status” norm to reach all masculinity segments.

The study of customer vulnerability in a group usually considered privileged identifies differential temporal experiences based on gender norms. The study confirms customer vulnerability is temporal in nature; customer vulnerability changes over time from likely to actual for self-reliant men.

This paper aims to understand employees’ propensity to blow the whistle in two East African countries. This study develops a model of ethical decision-making (EDM) to assist management in predicting the probability of whistleblowing in Kenya and Uganda. It also seeks to find the moderating effect of perceived retaliation on whistleblowing intention.

This study administers a standardized questionnaire to employees in Kenya and Uganda to measure their perceptions about whistleblowing in their organizations. This study uses partial least square structural equation modeling to test the hypotheses. This study uses four constructs, namely, awareness, judgment, retaliation and likelihood, of blowing the whistle. These constructs are measured with multiple-item scales.

The results show that ethical awareness and judgment significantly increase willingness to engage in whistleblowing in East Africa. However, this study does not find a significant retaliation effect on whistleblowing intention. Instead, this study finds that awareness and judgment mediate between retaliation and willingness to engage in whistleblowing.

This study contributes to EDM topics. It advances the understanding of the whistleblowing concept, the retaliation effect and the reasons to encourage blowing the whistle in Africa. However, this study did not consider cultural factors, such as nationality, patriotism and ethnicity. Moreover, the results are only based on data from Uganda and Kenya and may not apply to other sub-Saharan nations.

These findings are particularly significant for managers and policymakers in East Africa, where fear of retaliation and lack of awareness are the main barriers to whistleblowing. The results may help managers develop human resource practices to include policies to support moral behavior. It may also provide insights to the policymakers to understand the factors that facilitate whistleblowing practices and help them to adopt new strategies or policies to stimulate whistleblowing culture.

This study is one of the initial empirical studies in the East Africa context to explore the EDM predictors and the impact of retaliation on the whistleblowing intention.

The purpose of this paper is to show that forgotten classics, such as Melvin T. Copeland’s (1924) Principles of Merchandising, can still teach lessons to students of the history of marketing thought.

The method involved using various key words on several internet search engines. The extensive internet search produced more than a dozen contemporaneous reviews and commentaries. Additionally, there was an intensive search through the histories of marketing thought literature. The extensive and intensive searches allowed a meta-analysis reexamining Copeland’s principles in light of future historical developments from the mid-1920s to the 21st century.

Historically, Copeland’s principles established the commodity school of marketing thought. (One of the three traditional approaches to understanding marketing taught to generations of students from the mid-1920s until the mid-1960s.) Although the traditional approaches/schools have long gone out of favor, Copeland’s classification of consumer and industrial (business) goods (products and services) have stood the test of time and are still in use 100 years later. Long overlooked, Copeland’s (1924) Principles of Merchandising also anticipated the marketing management/strategy as well as the consumer/buyer behavior schools of marketing thought, dominant in the discipline since the 1960s, for which he has seldom – if ever – been acknowledged.

Historical research is limited because some relevant source material may no longer exist or may have been overlooked.

There have been no reviews of Copeland’s principles in almost a century, and no published meta-analysis of this forgotten classic exists. New discoveries reveal the value in studying marketing history and the history of marketing thought. For marketing as a social science to progress, it is invaluable to understand how ideas originated, were improved and integrated into larger conceptualizations, classification schema and theories over time.

In this paper, the philosophy of John Rawls, known as “Justice as Fairness,” is discussed. This philosophy examines the responsibilities social actors hold toward their societal organizations. From an Islamic perspective, justice is pivotal in safeguarding collective interests, aligning with Rawls' conviction that just societies nurture happiness and foster well-being across various life aspects. To achieve customer welfare, our viewpoint underscores the importance of justice in reflecting on consumer well-being from both Rawls’ theory and Islamic perspectives.

We adopt a conceptual approach where secular views of Rawls’ “Theory of Justice” are merged with the Islamic view, resulting in novel insights regarding the hermeneutics involved in the notion of justice and the preservation of consumer well-being.

Our analysis reveals that John Rawls' “A Theory of Justice” aligns with the Islamic perspective in several respects yet diverges in others, notably in the concepts of pre-creation consciousness and divine guidance. These distinctions are emphasized in our paper.

Our paper presents a perspective on justice founded on the concepts of the “Original Position” and the “Veil of Ignorance.” The commentary explores consumer well-being by integrating Rawls' principles with an analysis that elucidates the role justice plays in enhancing societal welfare.