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The purpose of this paper is to show how non-linear causal modelling knowledge, already accumulated by other disciplines, is central to unravelling wicked problem scoping and definition in social marketing.

The paper is an illustrative case study approach, highlighting three real-world exemplars of causal modelling for wicked problem definition.

The findings show how the traditional linear research methods of social marketing are not sensitive enough to the dynamics and complexities of wicked problems. A shift to non-linear causal modelling techniques and methods, using interaction as the unit of analysis, provides insight and understanding into the chains of causal dependencies underlying social marketing problems.

This research extends the application of systems thinking in social marketing through the illustration of three non-linear causal modelling techniques, namely, collective intelligence, fuzzy cognitive mapping and system dynamics modelling. Each technique has the capacity to visualise structural and behavioural properties of complex systems and identify the central interactions driving behaviour.

Non-linear causal modelling methods provide a robust platform for practical manifestations of collaborative-based strategic projects in social marketing, when used with participatory research, suitable for micro, meso, macro or systems wide interventions.

The paper identifies non-linear causality as central to wicked problem scoping identification, documentation and analysis in social marketing. This paper advances multi-causal knowledge in the social marketing paradigm by using fuzzy, collective and interpretative methods as a bridge between linear and non-linear causality in wicked problem research.

Food is a key element in tourism experiences. This study aims to investigate the interplay of sensory and non-sensory factors in food tourism experiences and models their influence on satisfaction and behavioural intentions.

The study focuses on the culinary experiences of 304 tourists dining at ethnic restaurants and uses causal relationship discovery modelling to analyse data.

Sensory factors are important in tourists’ culinary experiences with cleanliness, noise levels and room temperature at the top of the causal chain. Results also indicate the interplay between sensory and non-sensory factors to explain overall satisfaction, intention to return and intention to say positive things.

Using embodied cognition theory, the study offers novel insights into the role of senses in food tourism experiences at rural destinations.

美食是乡村旅游的主要吸引物之一。本研究的目的是调查游客在用餐体验中感官和非感官因素的相互作用, 以及这些因素如何影响游客的满意度和行为意愿。

本研究使用因果关系建模的方法来分析 304 名在某地方特色餐厅用餐的游客的问卷数据。

结果显示, 对于游客的用餐体验而言, 感官和非感官因素具备同等的重要性。此外, 结果发现, 游客感知到的噪音水平、适宜的室内温度及清洁度在与其他因素的相互作用中非常重要, 并能激发游客的满意度和重游意愿。

基于认知理论, 本研究为更好地理解感官因素和非感观因素在乡村旅游情境下的游客用餐体验中的作用提供了新的知识。

La comida es un elemento clave en las experiencias turísticas. Este estudio investiga la interacción de factores sensoriales y no sensoriales en las experiencias de turismo gastronómico y modela su influencia en la satisfacción y las intenciones de comportamiento.

El estudio se centra en las experiencias culinarias de 304 turistas que cenan en restaurantes étnicos y utiliza modelos de descubrimiento de relaciones causales para analizar los datos.

Los factores sensoriales son importantes en las experiencias culinarias de los turistas con la limpieza, los niveles de ruido y la temperatura ambiente en la parte superior de la cadena causal. Los resultados también indican la interacción entre factores sensoriales y no sensoriales para explicar la satisfacción general, la intención de regresar y la intención de decir cosas positivas.

Utilizando la teoría de la cognición incorporada, el estudio ofrece nuevos conocimientos sobre el papel de los sentidos en las experiencias de turismo gastronómico en destinos rurales.

Highlighting the need for a profound move towards desecularisation of Islamic scholarship, this conceptual paper aims to clarify the concept of causality from the Islamic marketing research perspective and extends a number of suggestions for improving theory building and hypothesis development in the field.

The approach taken is largely conceptual. In addition, this study collates the stated hypotheses in the articles published in this journal in the past five years and analyses the structure of causal statements to uncover key tendencies.

The review of historical and current views on causality indicates that most commentators agree that assuming the existence of the necessary connection between cause and effect is misleading. The Islamic traditions based on occasionalism and modern science agree that causal statements reflect, at best, probabilistic assumptions.

This paper offers a number of insights and recommendations for theory building and hypothesis development in Islamic marketing. By following the occasionalism perspective and the notion of Sunnah of Allah, researchers will be able to build methodologically coherent and genuine Islamic marketing knowledge.

Correctly stated and tested hypotheses can be used by public policymakers to enforce effective consumer and market policies.

This paper tackles a complex issue of causality in Islamic marketing research which has not hitherto been discussed well in the literature. This research is also a unique step towards developing pioneering avenues within the domain of Islamic marketing research methodology.

This paper aims to expose the inadequacy of social marketing to tackle complex social problems, while proposing an expansion in the discipline’ conceptual repertoire. The goal is to incorporate complexity tools, in particular from the system dynamics field, and the promotion of mindware within a true transdisciplinary paradigm.

This paper uses literature review to support the proposed theoretical development. It also presents a short case study.

Most problems that plague our modern societies have a distinctive complex nature that is not amenable to traditional social marketing interventions. Social marketing has simplified the problem of bringing about societal change by thinking that upstream social actors can be influenced in the same way as downstream individuals. This paper shows that this is not the case while proposing a framework to close this gap.

The proposed framework is a theoretical one. It depends on further refinements and actual application to wicked problems.

Complex social problems – or wicked problems – remain widespread in modern societies. Moreover, they are getting worse over time. The paper presents a proposal to redefine the limits of the social marketing discipline so it can be more useful to tackle such problems. Practical approaches such as measuring the success of mindware in the marketplace of ideas are implied in the proposed framework.

The increase in complexity of social problems has not been accompanied by an evolution in the discipline of social marketing. The lack of proper conceptual tools has prevented the discipline from contributing to tackling these problems effectively. Some interventions may actually worsen the underlying problems, as illustrated in the paper.

This paper identifies two major gaps associated with the social marketing discipline, in particular the lack of complexity and systems thinking and the forsaking of ideas (mindware) as a legitimate goal of the discipline. This realization corroborates the claim that boundaries among disciplines are often artificial, hindering the proper understanding of complex social problems. In turn, only the use of adequate conceptual lenses makes it possible to devise interventions and programs that tackle actual causes (instead of symptoms) of complex social problems.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on food consumption as part of the wicked problem of obesity. Specifically, the authors seek to explore the complex interplay between stakeholders such as food producers, marketers, health and medical practitioners and policymakers and their influence on the ways in which individuals consume food and also chart a course forward using a systems approach, social marketing techniques and social enterprise to develop solutions to effect change.

This is a conceptual paper that proposes the food system compass to understand the complex interplay between stakeholders.

This new tool will provide social marketers with an improved understanding of the complexity of interactions between stakeholders and outcomes and integrating the necessity for coordination within and across micro, meso, exo and macro levels of the system as well as across sectors, institutions and stakeholders.

This is a conceptual paper and proposes the food system compass which offers a foundation for future research to expand upon.

This paper seeks to advance the theoretical base of social marketing by providing new insights into the trans-disciplinary and dynamic circumstances surrounding food consumption and obesity and highlights leverage points where joint actions can be facilitated with actors across and between micro, meso, exo and macro levels.

Social marketing has gained widespread recognition as a means of motivating behaviour change in individuals for societal good. Many opinions have been shared regarding its potential to affect society or systems-wide change, leading to the macro-or systems social marketing (SSM) concepts and ideas. This paper aims to critically appraise the SSM literature, identify key features and highlight gaps for future research.

A search was conducted of peer-reviewed SSM articles published from 2000 to March 2018 inclusive. A number of online databases were mined, including but not limited to Google, Google Scholar, Scopus, PubMed, Cochrane and Medline. Key social marketing outlets (Social Marketing Quarterly and Journal of Social Marketing) were browsed manually. In total, 28 SSM articles were identified.

SSM adopts a dynamic systems thinking approach; it is an orientation, not a theory or model; it is multi-method; and it recognises that intervention can occur on multiple levels. Yet, greater attention should be given to the complexities of the systems context and the power structures and relations that exist between stakeholders. Significant issues also include stakeholder voice and participation, the use and reporting of theories and models, the measurement of long-term intervention outcomes and the undesirable impacts of SSM.

This paper identifies issues that need to be addressed if social marketing is to become a more system-oriented means to positively influence societal change. Implications for theoretical and practical development of the social marketing field are provided.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between stock prices and exchange rates in 12 OECD countries.

The authors examine the nexus of stock prices and exchange rates for 12 OECD countries by using the vector error correction model, the bounds testing methodology and linear and non‐linear Granger causality methods.

The empirical results substantiate that a long‐run level equilibrium relationship among the exchange rates and stock prices exists in only seven out of twelve countries. The results of the linear causality tests indicate that significant short‐run and long‐run causal relationships exist between the two financial markets. The results of the tests for non‐linear Granger causality suggest that unidirectional and bidirectional non‐linear causal relationships exist between stock prices and exchange rates among these OECD countries.

The findings from this paper suggest the causal relationships between stock prices and exchange rates are not only linear, but also non‐linear.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the price–volume relationship in the bitcoin market to validate near-stock properties of bitcoin.

Daily data of bitcoin returns, returns volatility and trading volume (TV) are utilized for the period August 17, 2010–April 16, 2017. Linear and non-linear causality tests are employed to examine price–volume relationship in the bitcoin market.

The linear causality analysis indicates that the bitcoin TV cannot be used to predict return; however, the reverse causality is significant. In contrast, the non-linear causality analysis shows that there are non-linear feedbacks between the bitcoin TV and returns. The bitcoin TV, which represents new information, leads to price changes, and large positive price changes lead to increased trading activity. Similarly, in recent periods (post-break period), the results of the non-linear causality test show a unidirectional causality from TV to the volatility of returns.

This study uses the average index value of major bitcoin exchanges. But further research on this relationship using data from different bitcoin exchanges may provide further insights into the price–volume relationship of bitcoin and its near-stock properties.

These findings from the non-linear causality analysis, therefore, suggest that investors cannot simply base their decisions on the linear dynamics of the bitcoin market. This is because new information in terms of the TV is neither linearly related to the price nor it is a one-to-one kind of relationship as most investors commonly understand it to be. Rather, investors’ decisions should be based on non-linear models, in general, and the best-fitting non-linear model, in particular.

The study examines bitcoin’s near-stock properties in a price–volume relationship framework with the help of both linear and non-linear causality tests, which to the best of the authors’ knowledge remains unexplored.

The direction of the causality relationship between Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and economic growth is a highly controversial issue in the literature. There are two basic approaches advocating different causal directions between FDI and growth, which are called hypotheses of FDI-led Growth and Growth-led FDI. The aim of this study is to analyze the causality relationship between FDI and economic growth in RCEP countries and thus make a new contribution to the discussions in the relevant literature. In addition, the results of the study are expected to provide important implications for the policies to be designed for economic growth based on FDI flows to RCEP countries. Thus, by examining the direction of causality between FDI and economic growth in RCEP countries, we aim to provide a new contribution to related literature and make some implications for the policy design process of economic growth in the RCEP area.

We empirically examined the direction of a causal link between FDI and economic growth in the context of Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RPEC) countries in order to test the hypothesis of FDI-led growth and Growth-led FDI. Accordingly, as our main variables of interest, we incorporated the inward foreign direct investment stock to gross domestic product ratio (FDI) and gross domestic product per capita (GDP). Hatemi-J (2012) asymmetric causality test has been employed in the investigation of the direction of causality between FDI and GDP over the period of 1980–2020. Thus, unlike most of the studies investigating the direction of causality between FDI and growth using the linear causality analysis method, our study performed a nonlinear causality analysis.

Empirical results reveal that the causal relationship between FDI and national income in RPEC countries is non-linear or asymmetric . The results of the symmetric causality test for both from FDI to national income and from national income to FDI are statistically insignificant for all countries. Therefore, this finding obtained from the study provided an important guide to the econometric methods to be used in other studies to be conducted in the same region in the future. Concerning the asymmetric causality relationship from FDI to growth, positive FDI shocks are an important cause of national income in most RCEP countries. However, the effect of negative FDI shocks on national income is quite weak compared to positive shocks. Regarding the asymmetric causality relationship from growth to FDI, positive national income shocks do not create a significant causal relationship with FDI. Similarly, the effects of negative national income shocks on FDI are statistically insignificant. Overall, asymmetric causality test results reveal that positive FDI shocks have an important causal impact on economic growth in most RCEP countries. Thus, the results of econometric analysis mostly support the argument that the FDI-led growth hypothesis rather than the Growth-led FDI hypothesis in RCEP countries. Accordingly, policy-makers in most of the RCEP countries should continue to provide more incentives and facilities to multinational companies in order to ensure constant economic growth.

Our study brings a significant difference in the econometric method used compared to most of the other studies in the literature. Existing empirical studies on the direction of causality between FDI and growth mostly use standard Granger-linear causality-type tests to detect the direction of causality among FDI and growth. Unlike most of the studies in the literature, our study adopted a different methodological approach, namely the Hatemi J test to detect the non-linear causality between FDI and economic growth in RCEP countries. Therefore, this paper made a new methodological contribution significantly to the literature focusing on the causal relationship between FDI and economic growth by using a non-linear causality method rather than a linear causality one.