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This paper presents the experience of proximity to death in old age in light of ancient ritual practices. Characteristic mechanisms of coping with impending death among the elderly are discussed from the perspective of rites of passage. In accordance with Van Gennep’s model, this paper postulates that the subjects belong to a “death culture” characterized by patterns of “separation,” “transition” and “fusion.” A comparison of funeral and burial rites with daily practices of the elderly offers an interpretation deriving from the domain of ritual symbolism and provides an opportunity for a renewed examination of gerontological approaches and concepts. The discussion will focus on the term “dignity of the dead” which sheds light on patterns of separation from reality espoused by the subjects. The paper asserts that the ritual perspective offers an empathic framework for understanding the predicament of the elderly at the end of their life.

The paper is an exploratory attempt to examine the practice of management consultancy and the cultural components of rituals, symbolism and magic in Botswana. Management consultants as catalytic agents of change remain relevant in organisational life and this study aims to investigate how they are perceived and how they perform their tasks in the African context.

In‐depth unstructured interviews were conducted with seven top management consultancy firms in Botswana, who agreed to participate in the study, focusing on six key research questions.

Findings revealed that the role of cultural values, while relevant, does not affect actual consultancy practice. It also establishes that consultation process is limited to mainly big organisations and government departments. The activities of consultants may be ritualistic to the extent of repetitiveness; there are also symbolic practices, there is, however, no evidence of superstitious or magical acts.

Qualitative data generally struggles with the accusation of researchers bias, while a sample size of seven consultants, certainly limits the generalisability of the findings, how much can we possibly learn from such a small size?

The need to reposition the consultation process for long‐term survival in the non‐Western context by inculcating indigenous values and mores was discussed as well as other policy implications.

The paper demonstrates the need for a re‐conceptualisation of what should constitute an effective management consultancy practice in non‐Western settings. Since managers are not divorced from their socio‐cultural environment their mental images reflect axioms that are deeply located in the uniqueness of their cultural settings.

Seeks to show the ritual and dramatic elements in an ostensibly rational and technocratic process; that is, the formulation of nurses’ information requirements prior to the introduction of a computerized nursing information system in a large hospital. Suggests that ritual is an important social process in times of change within organizations and that there are close affinities between ritual and theatrical performance. What is interesting is that a process of intensifying the measurement of performance and the monitoring of work, apparently attributes of rational managerial practice, appear to be enacted in conditions which are redolent of ritual and of theatre. It is this somewhat paradoxical juxtaposition of the introduction of new technologies, replete with scientific allusions and the decidedly non‐rational social practices that accompany them, which lead to a questioning of the efficacy of notions of efficient and rational management and the role of new technologies in supporting these ideals.

The purpose of this paper is to test Luna and Gupta’s (2001) investigative framework on the interaction of cultural values and consumer behaviour by conducting a cross-cultural comparison of young wine consumers’ interpretation of images of champagne and sparkling wine. The research examined consumer responses to the images through the prism of the relationship between symbolism, ritual and myth, as well as other related values.

In a series of focus groups with consumers from four anglophone countries (the USA, New Zealand, Australia and the UK), six images of champagne and sparkling wine were used as stimuli to encourage affective and cognitive perspectives on the topic.

Overall, the UK market showed distinct differences from the other markets, due very much to its cultural context. The UK consumers valued traditional advertising; focused mainly on the product itself; and did not associate champagne with fun. Respondents from the New World focused on the general impression of the image and on enjoyment and fun associated with consumption of champagne and sparkling wine.

The most crucial implication of this research is the cultural variation in consumer perceptions of champagne and sparkling wine and the impact that it has upon marketing strategies on how to market this product category to younger consumers in different markets.

This research contributes to the study of cultural values and consumption behaviour, as well as image effectiveness in forming perceptions of the product category.

The principal purposes of this paper are to provide normative advice in terms of managing the British Monarchy as a Corporate Heritage Brand and to reveal the efficacy of examining a brand's history for corporate heritage brands generally.

Taking a case history approach, the paper examines critical events in the Crown's history. It is also informed by the diverse literatures on the British Monarchy and also marshals the identity literatures and the nascent literature relating to corporate brands. Six critical incidents that have shaped the monarchy over the last millennium provide the principal data source.

In scrutinising key events from the institution's historiography it was found that the management and maintenance of the Crown as a corporate brand entail concern with issues relating to: continuity (maintaining heritage and symbolism); visibility (having a meaningful and prominent public profile); strategy (anticipating and enacting change); sensitivity (rapid response to crises); respectability (retaining public favour); and empathy (acknowledging that brand ownership resides with the public). Taking an integrationist perspective, the efficacy of adopting a corporate marketing approach/philosophy is also highlighted.

A framework for managing Corporate Heritage is outlined and is called “Chronicling the Corporate Brand”. In addition to Bagehot's dictum that the British Monarch had a constitutional obligation to encourage, advise and warn the government of the day, the author concludes that the Sovereign has a critical societal role and must be dutiful, devoted and dedicated to Her (His) subjects.

This is one of the first papers to examine the British Monarchy through a corporate branding lens. It confirms that the Crown is analogous to a corporate brand and, therefore, ought to be managed as such.

Consultants are called in when managers of corporations and organizations face major changes. Cultural changes and transitions from one stage of development to another are among the subjects studied in cultural anthropology. This article looks at how cultural anthropological insights into trans‐ition rituals can be applied to consultancy practice. It is postulated that one of the roles played by the consultant in this context is that of a magician who guides the transition from the old to the new with not only rituals, but also rules. This approach has so far received little attention in management and consultancy literature. The article is rounded off with some conclusions.

Few extant studies have focused on digital rituals and investigated the relationship between them and customer citizenship behavior in the context of online brand communities (OBCs). This study aims to examine the sequential mediation mechanism of emotional energy and spiritual brand identification under interaction ritual theory and identifies membership prototypicality as the moderator.

An online investigation of 515 OBC users was conducted to gather data, and structural equation modeling was applied to test the hypotheses.

The empirical results revealed that OBC rituals were positively related to customer citizenship behavior. Emotional energy and spiritual brand identification could play mediating roles in the relationship between OBC rituals and customer citizenship behavior. Furthermore, there existed a sequential mediation mechanism with emotional energy as the first mediator and spiritual brand identification as the second. The effect of OBC rituals on emotional energy was more significant for peripheral members than prototypical members.

Managers of OBCs should conduct various ritualistic strategies to stimulate users to perform customer citizenship behaviors. Discrete ritualized activities should be intended for members of different prototypicalities.

This study provides a profound insight on how OBC rituals foster customer citizenship behavior and is among the first to explore such a relationship. It also investigates the sequential mediation mechanism, thus broadening the research on the influencing processes of OBC rituals on customer citizenship behavior.

The current research aims to develop a measurement scale of consumption rituals. On the basis of literature review and second-hand data, this paper conceptualizes consumption rituals and compiles the initial items. Furthermore, through the scale development process, this paper constructs and verifies the four dimensions of consumption rituals, namely, uniqueness, commitment, ceremoniality and nonfunctionality.

First, qualitative data gathered in an open interview and secondary data from the Internet were examined, and then they were converted into initial statements. Then researchers refined and evaluated the statements to form the initial items. After two rounds of exploratory factor analysis (EFA), the items were tested and improved to make them clear representatives of the conceptual structure and the final items of the Consumption Ritual Scale were formed. Finally, through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), the items were retested and revised, and the reliability and validity of the scale were assessed, so as to obtain the final scale.

Empirical studies show that the scale has good reliability and validity, and has good discriminative validity with related variables (such as the sense of sacredness, sense of participation, feeling of awe, sense of control and sense of identity).

This paper selects rituals in the consumption context as the research object, explores and verifies the conceptual dimension, constructs a four-factor dimensional model and develops a measurement scale of consumption rituals.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate “tribal” consumption behaviour and its relationship to branding, in the particular context of the surfing community in Portugal.

Two focus group meetings with “surfers” and “fans” respectively, in April 2006, were enriched by computerised projective techniques and program‐assisted design (PAD) technology, backed by high quality video prompts. Qualitative data analysis was enhanced by quantified data collected in the PAD phase. The design was expressly directed at future quantification and model building.

Four research propositions, derived from an extensive literature review, were mostly confirmed: surfing does exhibit characteristics of a cult. There are three distinct types of adherent, their associative behaviour characterized by affiliation, social recognition, socialization and symbolism. Surfers and fans exhibit strong brand awareness and less strong preferences for surf‐linked brands, in different ways.

Interpretation is limited by the scope of the study: two focus groups in one country. There is some compensation in the richness of the data.

Marketers involved with cult consumers and tribal brands need a body of knowledge on which to base their marketing intelligence gathering and strategic planning.

This paper provides exploratory research findings related to one classic example of the tribal brand‐consumption behaviour that accounts for significant consumer spending around the postmodern world.

The purpose of this paper is to present a part of a research study, undertaken over three years, in which the author observed the organization of an annual, community-based, arts and crafts festival in rural central Sweden. By examining the participation of a specific village community group in the organization of the festival, this paper sets out to explore links between the practices of organizing and the culture of a community group engaged in them.

The research study was conducted over three annual cycles of the festival, and its methods reflected the author's position as both a tourist visitor to the festival and a volunteer participant. This paper presents a “thick-description” of the work of a single community volunteer group in the annual organization their village's festival contribution, based on observational and informal interview data from the author's position as a member of that group, and some of the photographic data gathered.

The account presented in this paper offers an examination of the annual routines of a small village community group in organizing their contribution to the broader multi-site festival event observed in the research study. The introduction of anthropological concepts linked to ritual practices extends the understanding of organizing in this setting.

A contribution to the development of an understanding of organizing in recurring, group-organized event settings through a detailed consideration of a micro-level ethnographic study data.