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To extend the work of Rob Kling, whose research interests, and advocacy were at the center of a movement in analytical inquiry and empirical research now known as “social informatics”.

Reviews the work of those who engage in social informatics research to strengthen and further the conceptual perspective, analytical approaches, and intellectual contributions of social informatics.

The vibrant and growing international community of active social informatics scholars has assembled a social informatics resource kit that includes: perspective lenses through which research data can be viewed critically; techniques for building theory and developing models from socially rich empirical data; and a common body of knowledge regarding the uses and effects of ICTs.

The paper identifies opportunities to engage new scholars in social informatics discussions, and suggests new venues for promoting and extending the work of scholars already enrolled in the social informatics movement.

In their conceptualization of the principal/agent relationship, Jensen and Meckling were not referring to a knowledge worker (KW) agent. Agency theory is extended to the context of a KW agent to identify a key role for IS/IT in facilitating the monitoring function. To test this, the dynamics of a critical principal‐KW agent relationship in the health‐care industry are investigated. It is demonstrated that IS/IT goes beyond just alleviating the agency problem to enabling the KW agent to perform “self‐monitoring”. The results are significant for health care, agency relationships and the use of IS/IT with knowledge workers.

To provide a view of Rob Kling's contribution to socio‐technical studies of work.

The five “big ideas” discussed are signature themes in Kling's own work in the informatics domain, and of his intellectual legacy.

This paper conveys something of Kling's presence in social informatics (SI) thinking by focusing on a number of “big” ideas – “multiple points of view”, “social choices”, “the production lattice” (and its corollary, the problematization of the user), “socio‐technical interaction networks”, and “institutional truth regimes”.

A growing research community has demonstrated the power of SI techniques. It is essential that this body of work is sustained and developed, demonstrating how to undertake investigation and observation, that is not driven by instrumentalism but is informed by and leads to “technological realism”.

The SI corpus, exposing the dangers of naïve instrumentalism as an approach to information systems design and management, can guide practitioners on how to unpack the history of what is in view. This may be a specific technology, a social formation, or a sociotechnical circumstance. Practitioners may draw on the concepts presented, not as a prescriptive toolkit, but rather as a sensitizing frame to assist those who wish to re‐vision the workplace.

Central to the successful utilisation of computers in work, we argue, is the continuing development of a portfolio of interpretive concepts (such as STINs, regimes of truth, production lattices) that can consolidate Rob Kling's “big” ideas that are the core of this paper.

This study aims to focus on consumers’ preferences towards rosé wine and explore whether and how the consumption context may influence consumers’ choices.

Using social networks platform, the authors conducted a choice experiment, to evaluate Italian consumers’ preferences for a glass of rosé in two consumption contexts, restaurant and wine bar. Characteristics of the rosé wine also included price, origin and type of wine. The authors applied a latent class analysis to define rosé wine consumers’ segments and incorporated personality traits in the model.

The results define three rosé wine drinkers’ profiles: “Wine bar visitors”, “The unenthusiastic” and “Restaurant visitors”. Socio-demographic characteristics and personality traits significantly affect consumers’ membership to the different segments. Who prefers to drink a rosé glass at the wine bar is younger, more opened to new experiences and, therefore, more inclined towards more sophisticated choices. Consumers at the restaurants tend to be more extrovert and sensitive to price.

This study offers insight for practitioners of both wine and hospitality industries in the development of strategies for new products market placement and, at the same time, for academics who are interested in the understanding of behavioural reasoning of consumers’ wine purchase choices.

This research investigates the effect of consumption context on individuals’ preference formation for a less familiar wine, such as rosé in Italy. To the authors’ knowledge, no previous studies explored how personality traits may affect consumers’ wine consumption context choices.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between consumer movements and sustainability certification bodies in the development of food-related consumer campaigns.

This paper adopts a longitudinal approach to the study of an empirical case, the Fairtrade Towns (FTT) movement in the UK. It combines netnographic analysis on the FTT’s online forum with interviews with members of the community and of the certification body coordinating the movement.

The author conceptualises Sustainably Certified Consumer Communities (SCCC) as a distinct sub-group of consumer movements whose identity coalesces around a sustainable certification and that mobilises supporters with the purpose of promoting social change through the marketplace. The longitudinal approach allows the identification of definitional elements, main practices and unresolved tensions of this concept.

Research addressing the social movement dimension of contemporary food-related sustainability certification is limited. The present study advances consumer research through the conceptualisation of SCCC and contributes to a new understanding of the political roles that market-oriented certification bodies can play in consumer activism. From a managerial perspective, it provides valuable insights into practitioners interested in fostering community engagement.

There have always been traditional differences between the various regions of the British Isles. For example, meat consumption is greater in the North than the South; most families take some meat at every meal and this extends to the children. The North is the home of the savoury meat products, eg., faggots, rissoles and similar preparations and a high meat content for such foods as sausages is expected; between 80 and 90% with the cereal only present for binding purposes. Present minimum meat contents would be considered a swindle, also the nature of the lean meat and the lean meat/fat ratio. The high water content similarly would have been unacceptable.