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The purpose of the chapter is to discuss the tourist experiences by tracing various perspectives and dimensions of authenticity, commodification, and McDonaldization.

The main debates on the authenticity of the tourism experiences and the commodification of the tourism product is examined. Further a relevant literature on the McDonaldization thesis is provided focusing on experiential dimensions of the tourism consumption.

Destinations rely not only on the object authenticity of their attractiveness but also strive to attract tourists by tailoring experiences that will meet high-order needs of the tourists. However, these destinations are under threat by commodification and McDonaldization due to excessive use of the resources as a result of mass tourism.

Destination managers and planners should focus on the experiences without compromising on authenticity, uniqueness, and genuineness of their destinations while refraining over-commercialization and McDonaldization of their offerings.

This chapter discusses the authenticity, commodification, and McDonaldization issues on the basis of a case study of a well-established destination.

The purpose is to examine the insights gained from applying Ritzer's thesis of McDonaldization to international qualitative marketing research, in particular the four pillars of McDonaldization: efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control.

The factors influencing choice of qualitative method in practice are examined drawing on the literature, the authors' observations based on experience (a team of practitioners) and a qualitative research study, using a mix of interviews and a workshop with those who co‐ordinate international research or who are subject to the co‐ordination.

The research suggests McDonaldization or “factory farming” may be a reality in some quarters in the qualitative marketing research industry and examples of how the four pillars of McDonaldization bear on the industry are examined.

There is a need to determine and monitor the extent of the McDonaldization phenomenon and at the same time explore across different cultures two key interfaces that can be adversely affected by McDonaldization, namely the respondent‐researcher interface and the researcher‐researcher interface when the researchers come from different cultures.

Management may now reflect on whether their practices increase or decrease the likelihood of gleaning qualitative insights and the case for considering developing a more eclectic research philosophy.

This paper provides a new framework for evaluating applied qualitative marketing research.

The application of McDonald′s product/production principles to other restaurant chains, and totally different social enterprises has been the subject of recent criticism. This “McDonaldization” is said to betoken a world of increased rationalization where large‐scale systems for the mass production of goods and services obliterate small‐scale opposition and give rise to fears for diminished choice in the future. Previously it has been argued that the advance of McDonaldization is far from total and the pessimistic prognosis is at least premature. Criticizes the McDonaldization thesis by reference to an alternative paradigm of “mass customization”. Argues that this is not only the logical next step for the production of goods and services, but also that it is already starting to happen.

The present study provides an overview of the historical as well as the global expansion of Facebook from developed countries to the developing countries. The chapter also provides an elaboration over the features and the architectural design of this Online Social Networking service. In order to understand the worldwide usage and acceptance of Facebook, and the gradual spread of Facebook from the United States to the European countries and then to the developing world, we need to pay close attention to the evolution of Facebook in these cultures. In comparison to the developed world, Facebook was slow to spread throughout developing countries. This chapter argues that certain conditions contributed to the expansion of Facebook in these countries. The growth of mobile technology and the usage of Facebook in multiple languages accelerated the increase in its membership. Although majority of the developing countries started using Facebook later than developed countries, within a few years they soon became the nations with the highest growth of Facebook users.

Following the ‘Sarkozy’ era (2007–2012), France has engaged in ‘zero-tolerance’ policies, which have brought an increasing number of people into the criminal justice system (CJS). In an already extremely impoverished CJS, these policies have led to serious financial problems and have made an already existing prison overcrowding problem worse. Consequently, the CJS has gradually opted for a McDonald (Ritzer, 2019; Robinson, 2019) type of offender processing, whether in prosecutor-led procedures (representing roughly half of all penal procedures: Ministry of Justice, 2019) or in the sentencing phase (Danet, 2013). A similar trend has been found in probation and in prisoner release (in French: ‘sentences’ management).

The prison and probation services, which merged in 1999, have since then been in a position to benefit from the 1958 French Republic Constitution, which places the executive in a dominant position and notably allows it to draft the bills presented to a rather passive legislative power (Rousseau, 2007) and even to enjoy its own set of normative powers (‘autonomous decrees’ – Hamon & Troper, 2019). By way of law reforming (2009, 2014, and 2019 laws), the prison and probation services have thus embraced the McDonaldisation ethos. Their main obsession has been to early release as many prisoners as possible in order to free space and to accommodate more sentenced people. To do so, the prison services have created a series of so-called ‘simplified’ early release procedures, where prisoners are neither prepared for nor supported through release, where they are deprived of agency and where due process and attorney advice are removed. Behind a pretend rehabilitative discourse, the executive is only interested in efficiently flushing people out of prison; not about re-entry efficacy. As Ritzer (2019) points out, McDonaldisation often leads to counter-productive or absurd consequences. In the case of early release, the stubborn reality is that one cannot bypass actually doing the rehabilitative and re-entry work. I shall additionally argue that not everything truly qualifies as an early release measure (Ostermann, 2013). Only measures which respect prisoners’ agency prepare them for their release, which support them once they are in the community, which address their socio-psychological and criminogenic needs, and which are pronounced in the context of due process and defence rights truly qualify as such. As it is, French ‘simplified’ release procedures amount to McRe-entry and mass nothingness.

The purpose of this paper is to address the concern for prosumption, created by Alvin Toffler’s work, and its fusion with Marx’s ideas to create the view that the people now live in an era of prosumer (rather than producer or consumer) capitalism. As a social theorist, the author routinely studies the ideas of classical (and contemporary) theorists not only to understand their thinking, but also for ideas that he can use, and expand upon, to better understand contemporary society, especially the economy. The author has used the ideas of Max Weber on rationalization – to develop his thinking on McDonaldization, and his ideas on enchantment and disenchantment – in the development of the author’s thinking on the cathedrals of consumption. The latter can also be seen as means of production from the perspective of Karl Marx’s theories. Georg Simmel’s theorizing about money led the author to insights on credit cards, especially the greater temptation to imprudence associated with them in comparison to cash. More recent postmodern theory helped the author understand the mechanisms (e.g. simulations) by which the cathedrals of consumption have undergone a process of enchantment.

This is a work in historical theory and metatheory.

The careful review of classical (and contemporary) social theories could, when adapted, help us to better understand contemporary society, especially, in this case the economy.

This is not a piece of research, but rather a theoretical exploration of contemporary prosumer culture based on classical ideas in social theory. It implies a radical change in the thinking about the modern economy.

This essay brings together some of the author’s ideas – and their classical roots – to offer an original perspective on the contemporary economy.

This paper, which is conceptual in both nature and approach, builds on a recent contribution to the theorization of “globalization” and seeks to utilise the framework developed therein to help promote a more complex conceptual understanding of the potential implications of how business operates and responds to these challenges in a global environment. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The paper draws primarily on a heuristic framework developed by O'Byrne and Hensby that reviews eight models of global change. In this paper, the authors review and give consideration to the relationship between these models and business practice and contend that this relationship is far more complex than the majority of the current literature in the business and management field represents. Within the paper, the authors explore and discuss the dynamics of the eight models of “globalization” and assess the potential implications for business practice of working within these often conflicting and contradictory paradigms of “globalization”. As part of this review, the authors consider the strategic implications of “globalization” for business practice and propose a conceptual model with eight strategic options which are aligned to the eight models of global change.

The paper presents a tentative heuristic framework seeking to align the eight models of global change with strategic options that companies might peruse in response to the global forces for change. The paper concludes by advocating a more integrative and complex understanding of globalization than is currently the case and identifies potential for further research in this area.

The paper develops a conceptual framework for assessing the challenges that processes of globalization present to business. The paper places a particular emphasis on considering the strategic implications of the various models of global change and offers a tentative framework for further debate and discussion.

Cryptomarkets or darknet marketplaces host multiple ‘vendors’ selling a variety of illicit products. The most sold and sought products on such markets are illegal drugs. These markets use cryptocurrencies as a payment system and provide participants with anonymity through their location on the dark web, and in recent years they have seen continuous growth in revenue and exchange. Existing literature has provided various explanations for this growth, but in 2017 the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction and Europol concluded in their 2017 ‘Drugs and the Darknet’ report that current interpretations of trends are not sufficient. This chapter will provide an alternative explanation for this phenomenon by considering web-based drug selling and purchasing in terms of trends towards ‘Uberisation’ and ‘McDonaldisation’ and applying Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital to the discussion of the dynamic cultures of consumption and different subcultures of the drug world.

Explores the use of strategies adopted by authors and publishers to enhance the success potential of their books.

Drawing on the literature on the production of best selling business books, strategies and techniques increasingly being deployed in the production of social science texts are considered. These strategies are collectively referred to as the “Ritzerization of knowledge”. The Disneyization of Society, by Alan Bryman, is explored as an example of this Ritzerization strategy.

It is argued that while such techniques aid in the production of easy reading, or “knowledge‐lite”, the dictates of the market may threaten the survival of more demanding texts and, worryingly, the capacity for a scholarly depth of understanding or the development of a substantial knowledge base.

Examines the “Ritzerization of knowledge” in both a social and a marketing context.