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To provide theoretical guidance on improving luxury brands’ marketing performance, this study aims to examine the impact mechanism and boundary conditions of luxury brand buyers’ consumption resources on observers’ brand attitudes from the perspective of consumers’ power distance beliefs (PDBs).

Four experimental studies were conducted. Study 1 examined the influence of the interaction of consumption resources and PDBs on luxury brand attitudes; Study 2 examined the mediating role of prestige perception. Study 3 excluded alternative explanations of (dis)association motivation and envy. Finally, Study 4 examined the moderating effect of brand relationship norms.

Consumers with low PDBs had lower attitudes towards luxury brands when consumption resources were acquired through luck (rather than effort). However, no significant difference in luxury brand attitudes was found between these two consumer groups when PDBs were high. Consumers’ perceptions of prestige played a mediating role in the main effect, whereas brand relationship norms moderated the main effect.

First, this study reveals the unique role of PDBs in shaping consumer attitudes towards luxury brands. Second, it uses consumption resources as a signal for luxury consumption and identifies a way to influence consumers’ attitudes towards luxury brands, namely, their perceptions of prestige. Third, it uncovers the influence of consumers’ brand relationship norms on the formation of luxury brand attitudes.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and introduce the new concept of the collaborative space.

Building on an extensive overview of past research and footing on extant conceptual work, the paper chooses an explicating conceptualization approach.

The paper presents the collaborative space, which features the three bipolar dimensions, namely, the type of consumption (access vs reownership), source of resource (company-owned vs consumer-owned) and the type of compensation (with vs without monetary fee). These dimensions open up multiple areas of the collaborative space, including the pseudo sharing economy, sharing ecology, redistribution markets and redistribution communities.

The paper shows blind spots in the literature as well as the need to consider the consumption context to outline directions for future research.

For managers, this paper develops a foundation for entering, exploring and exploiting the collaborative space along the stages acquisition, distribution, consumption and compensation.

Collaborative consumption is associated with community-building, resource saving and sustainability. The conceptualization of the collaborative spaces provides different options to enable more sustainable consumption and raise social exchange between consumers.

So far, an overarching framework that reveals similarities and differences of business models that are associated with collaborative consumption and the sharing economy is missing. This paper develops this framework, which is labelled the collaborative space.

The aim of this paper is to assess how the indicator sets presently used to monitor sustainable development in the European Union (EU) and Latvia reflect resource consumption and the production and use of anthropogenic substances.

The study was conducted by analyzing different sources as well as statistical information on development character in Latvia and human impact at first in respect to use of chemicals.

Many of the analyzed sustainable development indicators related to resource consumption interpret a reduction in consumption as a negative phenomena and thus contradictory to sustainability. The only relevant EU and Latvian indicator related to the use of anthropogenic substances is production of toxic chemicals. The EC Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) regulation is being implemented in the EU in an attempt to ensure the safety of chemicals through the whole chemical supply chain.

A sustainable development indicator should consider the decrease in resource consumption as a positive trend. As an important aspect at the assessment of sustainability is monitoring of use of chemical substances. In Latvia, the information on production, import, distribution and use of chemical substances is dispersed between several institutions and thus an overall picture is lacking. As the REACH regulation requires registration of chemical substances exceeding certain quantities, there is a necessity to elaborate an approach to identify such substances. Enterprises that already provide data on chemicals to responsible authorities are important for a targeted enforcement of REACH requirements in Latvia. The existing approach of chemical substance management represents an attempt to manage point sources of anthropogenic substances with little attention being devoted to the more numerous small diffuse sources, which could be the hidden part of the iceberg. The limited access to compiled data on chemical substances within REACH makes it difficult to use it as a warning sign in political or public discussions regarding one of the central aspects of sustainability.

One of the main risks to global sustainability is the exceedance of the Earth's carrying and assimilative capacity through excessive resource consumption and anthropogenic loading. In the analyzed EU and Latvia, sustainable development indicator sets the reduction in consumption is frequently interpreted as a negative trend thus making the overall assessment regarding resource consumption inconclusive. As long as gross domestic product as a major indicator for macro‐economic activity does not reflect environmental sustainability and well‐being and society does not adequately value natural and human resources and until more comprehensive indicators are developed which better take into account social and environmental aspects, striving for economic growth will be the main cause of resource overconsumption.

The purpose of this paper is to show that the environmental income drives economic growth of a large open country.

The authors detect that the relative environmental income has double effect of “conspicuous consumption” on the international renewable resource stock changes when a new social norm shapes to environmental-friendly behaviors by using normal macroeconomic approaches.

Every unit of extra demand for renewable resource consumption increases the net premium of domestic capital asset. Even if the technology spillovers are inefficient to the substitution of capital to labor force in a real business cycle, the relative income with scale effect increases drives savings to investment. In this case, the renewable resource consumption promotes both the reproduction to a higher level and saving the potential cost of environmental improvement. Even if without scale effects, the loss of technology inefficient can be compensated by net positive consumption externality for economic growth in a sustainable manner.

It implies how to earn the environment income determines the future pathway of China’s rural conversion to the era of eco-urbanization.

We test the tax incidence to demonstrate an experimental taxation for environmental improvement ultimately burdens on international consumption side.

The Hot Spot Analysis developed by the Wuppertal Institute is a screening tool focussing on the demand of reliable sustainability‐oriented decision‐making processes in complex value chains identifying high priority areas (“hot spots”) for effective measures in companies. This paper aims to focus on this tool.

The Hot Spot Analysis is a qualitative method following a cradle‐to‐cradle approach. With the examples of coffee and cream cheese hot spots of sustainability indicators throughout the entire life cycle are identified and evaluated with data from literature reviews and expert consultations or stakeholder statements. This paper focuses on the indicator resource efficiency as an example of how the methodology works.

The identified hot spots for coffee are the raw material procurement phase in terms of abiotic material, water and energy consumption, the production phase concerning biotic material and the energy consumption in the use phase. For cream cheese relevant hot spots appear in the raw material procurement phase in terms of biotic materials and water as well as biotic materials and energy consumption during the production phase.

Life cycle analyses connected to indicators like resource efficiency need to be applied as consequent steps of a Hot Spot Analysis if a deeper level of analysis is eventually aimed at which is more cost and time intensive in the short term. The Hot Spot Analysis can be combined with other sustainability management instruments.

Research and management can be directed to hot spots of sustainability potential quickly which pays off in the long term.

The paper shows that companies can address sustainability potentials relatively cost moderately.

The sharing economy is a socio-economic system in which individuals acquire and distribute goods and services among each other for free or for compensation through internet platforms. The sharing economy has attracted the interest of the academic community, which examined the phenomenon from the economic, social and technological perspectives. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

Given the lack of an overarching analysis of the sharing economy, this paper employs a quantitative content analysis approach to explore and synthesise relevant findings to facilitate the understanding of this emerging phenomenon.

The paper identified and grouped findings under four themes, namely: collaborative consumption practices, resources, drivers of user engagement and impacts, each of which is discussed in relation to the three main themes, aiming to compare findings and then put forward an agenda for further research.

The paper offers a balanced analysis of the building blocks of the sharing economy, to identify emerging themes within each stream, to discuss any contextual differences from a multi-stakeholder perspective and to propose directions for future studies.

By drawing attention to the finite rather than unlimited nature of physical resources, the purpose of this paper is to: examine the implications of the (near absolute) emphasis placed on firm growth on sustainable consumption; and discuss complementary perspectives spanning individual, firm and societal levels that allow for both firm growth and sustainable consumption.

The authors integrate multidisciplinary insights from marketing, sociology, environmental sciences, management and economics, to understand the inherent tensions between unchecked firm growth, consumption and sustainability. Five propositions link production, consumption and marketing from a resource standpoint.

A ceaseless economic growth paradigm and overconsumption causes an unwarranted depletion of resources and is at odds with sustainability. Firms can play an important role by guiding future marketing and production toward sustainable ends. Several alternate perspectives support the case that growth may coexist and align with sustainable consumption. Consequently the authors consolidate and reflect on seven approaches (voluntary simplicity, humane consumption, CSR 2.0, social marketing, marketing 3.0, anti-positional economy and degrowth) that hold promise for achieving sustainability via responsible growth and consumption.

The authors consider the complex triad of growth, consumption and sustainability that spans multiple levels. A focus on the pattern and nature of growth and consumption helps to identify its effects on sustainability. Specifically, two value chain activities – production and marketing may be leveraged as firm level initiatives to achieve sustainable goals. In addition, the authors present seven heterogeneous perspectives that complement firm attempts to achieve growth with sustainable consumption. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

In residential buildings, personal choices influence electricity and water consumption. Prior studies indicate that information feedback can stimulate resource conservation. College dormitories provide an excellent venue for controlled study of the effects of feedback. The goal of this study is to assess how different resolutions of socio‐technical feedback, combined with incentives, encourage students to conserve resources.

An automated data monitoring system was developed that provided dormitory residents with real‐time web‐based feedback on energy and water use in two “high resolution” dormitories. In contrast, utility meters were manually read for 20 “low‐resolution” dormitories, and data were provided to residents once per week. For both groups, resource use was monitored during a baseline period and during a two week “dorm energy competition” during which feedback, education and conservation incentives were provided.

Overall, the introduction of feedback, education and incentives resulted in a 32 percent reduction in electricity use (amounting to savings of 68,300 kWh, $5,107 and 148,000 lbs of CO₋₂) but only a 3 percent reduction in water use. Dormitories that received high resolution feedback were more effective at conservation, reducing their electricity consumption by 55 percent compared to 31 percent for low resolution dormitories. In a post‐competition survey, students reported that they would continue conservation practices developed during the competition and that they would view web‐based real‐time data even in the absence of competition.

The results of this research provide evidence that real‐time resource feedback systems, when combined with education and an incentive, interest, motivate and empower college students to reduce resource use in dormitories.

This is the first study to report on the effects of providing college students with real‐time feedback on resource use. The authors of this study are currently engaged in further research to determine: whether reductions in consumption can be sustained over time with and without incentives; the degree to which feedback affect attitude; and the degree to which findings are transferable to apartments and other residential settings.

Even though many studies have attempted to understand the drivers of carbon dioxide emission and energy consumption to help tackle environmental issues, not much has been done to estimate the effect of natural resources extraction on these two variables. This paper aims to analyze the long-run and short-run carbon dioxide emission and energy consumption effect of natural resources extraction in Ghana.

The theoretical foundation for this study is the Stochastic Impacts Regression on Population, Affluence and Technology (STIRPAT) model. Secondary Data sourced from World Development Indicators (2018) for the period of 1971-2013 were used. Estimation was done by using the autoregressive distributed lag.

It was found among other things that urbanization, and extraction of natural resources contribute to Ghana’s carbon dioxide emission, while official development assistance helps in reducing carbon dioxide emission in the long run. Again, while income and extraction of natural resources increase energy consumption, urbanization and official development assistance reduce environmental degradation in the long run. Regarding the short run, income and urbanization both increase energy consumption and carbon dioxide emission; trade openness and official development assistance decrease both carbon dioxide emission and energy consumption.

The implications from the results include the need to strictly enforce laws regulating extractive activities in the country to ensure a safe environment; and also to raise tariff and non-tariff barriers on products that do not promote a friendly environment and vice versa.

The effect of natural resources extraction on carbon emission and energy consumption is examined.

An Activity-Based Costing (ABC) system generates a significant amount of detailed, complex data for management to evaluate and use, potentially reducing decision-making effectiveness. The purpose of this paper is to show how reducing the magnitude of detailed information that an ABC system provides can increase decision-making effectiveness.

This study develops a theoretical Weighted Average ABC model by taking ABC information and rearranging it to enhance decision-making effectiveness.

Weighted Average ABC provides cost assignments that are approximately the same to those of ABC in most situations. In Weighted Average ABC, the weighted average consumption ratios provide relevant decision-making information to determine which products are costlier. To reduce costs, management can focus on those costlier products or services and can request from the cost accountants additional detailed information concerning those costlier products or services.

This study adds to the ABC literature by developing Weighted Average ABC. However, the limitation of this study is that no actual data could be obtained from a company that uses ABC, and thus, this study develops an analytical model.

Weighted Average ABC may increase decision-making effectiveness in situations when managers need to make fast decisions.

This study develops a theoretical Weighted Average ABC model in which the weighted average activity consumption ratios of the product lines and the total overhead costs are the variables needed, thus skipping Stage 1 of ABC. This, in turn, reduces the amount of information provided to management. Accordingly, weighted Average ABC provides timelier and more manageable information for decision making.