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The importance of customer service to the small firm together with how small firms can maximize their inherent strengths in this respect are considered. Current customer service theories, which have developed with larger organizations in mind, are examined to assess how they may be adapted to have relevance for the smaller business. A conceptual model of customer service for small firms is outlined and applied to findings from an empirical study of 28 small firms.

This article aims to give a short overview of the relationship between marketing and feminism.

The analysis is based on a literature review of key studies contributing to the debates on whether marketing activities exploit or empower women.

The findings illustrate the changing nature of feminist attitudes to the role of the market in women's lives.

As a short overview, this analysis necessarily shortens topics that merit more in‐depth investigation.

Three waves of feminism are overviewed in relation to feminist attitudes in the marketplace.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how consumer researchers working in the interpretivist tradition go about composing well founded theorized storylines, in order to convince audiences of the soundness of the theory‐building which emanates from their studies.

An analytical framework was derived from Golden‐Biddle and Locke's study of organizational ethnographers to see how they made their accounts convincing to their audiences. Golden‐Biddle and Locke's analysis revealed 3Ds – authenticity, plausibility and criticality (each with a variety of sub‐dimensions) – that played key rhetorical roles in convincing readers.

Using this analytical framework (summarized in three tables), examples from a variety of authors' work in Journal of Consumer Research ( JCR) were drawn upon to illustrate how interpretivist consumer behaviour authors tackled these three key dimensions: authenticity, plausibility and criticality.

Only a limited set of JCR studies out of an extensive field of qualitative research in consumer behaviour were analyzed.

Little attention has been paid hitherto to the actual practices of writing qualitative research within the marketing field. The more basic writing techniques involved in qualitative research tend to be regarded as implicit, skills that are acquired by osmosis rather than being formally taught or made explicit. This can make it particularly difficult for less‐experienced interpretivist researchers to learn the tools of their qualitative trade, which are often taken for granted by longer standing researchers. The paper seeks to make some of these writing practices more transparent and some of the rhetorical devices more explicit for authors who may wish to improve their own writing styles or strengthen their ability to use rhetoric.

This paper reflects on the development of Consumer Culture Theory, both as a field of research and as an institutional classification, since the publication of Arnould and Thompson (2005).

This paper takes a conceptual/historical orientation that is based upon the authors’ experiences over the course of the 10-year CCT initiative (including numerous conversations with fellow CCT colleagues).

The authors first discuss key benchmarks in the development of the CCT community as an organization. Next, the authors highlight key intellectual trends in CCT research that have arisen since the publication of their 2005 review and discuss their implications for the future trajectories of CCT research.

The paper by Arnould and Thompson (2005) has proven to be influential in terms of systematizing and placing a widely accepted disciplinary brand upon an extensive body of culturally oriented consumer research. The CCT designation has also provided an important impetus for institution building. The 10-year anniversary of this article (and not incidentally the CCT conference from which the papers in this volume hail) provides a unique opportunity for the authors to comment upon the broader ramifications of their original proposals.

From the early 1990s a number of papers advocating feminist analyses of marketing phenomena appeared in the marketing literature. Scholars working from feminist perspectives in other disciplines have examined marketing phenomena for some time. Provides a guide to this literature, highlighting the scope of the work and its diversity, and suggests areas where more research is needed.

This paper discusses the widening gulf between theory and practice and examines why theoretical marketing can be deemed to be of little use to many practitioners. In order to do this one of marketing’s core tenets, the customer focused marketing mix, is analysed and found to be in need of critical reappraisal. A dogmatic approach to customer orientation has produced several dichotomies of focus and perspective between theory and practice which may threaten the philiosophy’s continuing usefulness. These dichotomies are illustrated and analysed according to their primary focus: customer or profit. In an attempt to resolve these conflicts between theory and practice a modification is proposed for the customer focused marketing mix.

Lillian Moller Gilbreth (1878‐1972) extended scientific management into marketing practice in the late 1920s. This paper aims to illuminate several of these practical extensions.

The paper is an historical case study.

Gilbreth brought her psychologically enlightened brand of scientific management to Macy's Department Store in New York City in the mid‐1920s; she accomplished early marketing research for Johnson & Johnson in 1926; and she designed model kitchens in the late 1920s and 1930s which showed homemakers how to minimize wasted motion and unnecessary fatigue in housework while maximizing the psychological well‐being of their families.

Gilbreth's accomplishments show that marketing research has a longer history than was once assumed, offering further support for the revision of Keith's 1960 periodization of this history.

This paper is the first to reveal how Gilbreth's unique mix of psychology and scientific management entered the field of marketing in the interwar period.

This paper examines the problems of translating marketing theory into effective marketing practice and specifically concentrates on the difficulties that surround the marketing planning process. First the authors explore the barriers to marketing planning and relate these to the lack of specific marketing competencies. Then the concept of work‐based learning is discussed and a programme of this nature suggested which builds on key marketing planning competencies.

Examines how small firms can maximise service quality to determine a competitive marketing advantage for their enterprise. Demonstrates how there is little in the conventional service quality literature to guide the small firm and that current models of service quality are most relevant to larger organisations. From the results of a two‐stage empirical study which focused on small engineering firms, a model of service quality is put forward which more truly reflects the circumstances of the smaller enterprise. Finally, the paper outlines the main considerations for the enterprise owner in developing a competitive advantage through service quality management.

The purpose of the paper is to understand the meanings young people give to their food consumption practices in the mealtime interdependencies at home or at school.

The paper uses an interpretive research strategy and adopts a multi‐method approach that includes depth interviews, visual diaries, and participant observations during school and family mealtimes. Informants were young people aged between 13 and 17.

The paper finds a key theme that is emerging in relation to the meanings created with food consumption is the relationship between formal and informal environments for food consumption and between parental and teacher control, and how these are mediated by the media. In response to mealtime interdependencies, informants adopt rebellious and informal everyday mealtime practices such as “eating‐in‐front‐of‐the‐television”, “eating‐at‐any‐time”, and “speed‐eating”. The emergent practices may be interpreted as a form of intergenerational conflict communicated through consumption acts, and ways of negotiating social relationships within social institutions.

The environment of food consumption may affect the uptake of school meals as well as family meals, and this may impact upon young people's dietary choices and behaviour. Additionally, the results indicate that parents (and teachers) learn from children about new ways to maintain family relatedness and love at mealtimes.

The work in this paper explores the realm of food consumption practices as a political arena involving social institutions.